A Semblance of Hope
by Vimesenthusiast
Summary: After a unlucky moment with the gang back in time, Ranma's forced to seek out the then-present day Happosai to steal his Namban Mirror to get home. When an explosion cracks the mirror and makes Ranma to forget his wish, he's flung through time and space to land on Remnant, but he isn't alone. And what are these weird white and black creatures? Pairing undecided
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own RWBY or Ranma.**

 **Hunting with your Fists (temp title)**

So, this is my attempt at a RWBY story, well the start of one at least. My RWBY muse demanded I write this and overcame my other muses with the equivalent of an army pounding on a company. The reason for this is simple: the fanfiction of RWBY is alive and growing in a way that Highschool of the Dead, Highschool DxD, Macross, Sekirei, even Star Wars doesn't match. There are several dozen really good RWBY stories, at least a dozen of which are currently being written and updated on a pretty decent basis, and even a few crossovers. This gives my muse much more impetus to work, something I've not seen before. Mind you, that doesn't mean I'll continue this story right away after Wild Wolf ends, but we'll see.

What can I tell you now?

1\. Sorry, but it does use a cliché I've used before, the Nanban Mirror, to get Ranma into Remnant.

2\. While OC's will abound in this first posting, only one will be a recurring character and even then she won't be one of the most important characters going forward. I intend to concentrate as much as possible on Ranma plus the original RWBYJNPR eight. Although I am tempted to play with team placements, if anyone can come up with alternate names that actually make sense and don't introduce OC's.

3\. This is not the idea I initially thought up for this crossover, it has been changed somewhat (okay, a **LOT** ), from the one on my profile. Apologies to those who I exchanged ideas with.

4\. One idea that I did keep from those discussions is based off something Monty Oum was quoted as saying: dust, aura and Semblances are not magic. Magic does not exist in Remnant. Needless to say, this will have implications. Although honestly after seeing some of Season three, I don't know if you can say they stayed true to that concept.

5\. And you can take that crap they call the third season and shove it. Not a bit of it is going down like it did in the canon. Especially those last few fucking episodes and how obviously Yang and Pyrrha were set up (honestly, the only surprise was that Yang only lost her forearm). Won't say my story will be all sweetness and light as you will see in this posting, but not nearly as angsty as that. Nor will a major plot point introduced in the last episode of season two just be forgotten as it seemed in canon. And I detest tournaments as a plot tool. There are much more important things your characters could be doing other than beating on one another for the pleasure of the sheeple. And as for Pyrrha suddenly pulling an Obi-Wan and deciding to sacrifice herself, fuck that. Just fuck that. Made no sense at the time, will not be happening here.

6\. I am not going to be as… positive towards Ozpin as most authors seem to be, his whole attitude and the idea of sitting back and waiting won't endear him to Ranma. Frankly to my mind as a teacher or a general (or king or chess player whatever he thought he was) Ozpin failed practically from beginning to end, missing the forest for the trees. Nor will Ironwood like Ranma… at all… at first. Or possibly ever. As for Glynda… heh.

7\. Pairings are up in the air. I initially wanted to go Ranma/Yang, but while I've read several good Jaune/Pyrrha fics and could go that way, I've looked at her character and honestly think Pyrrha and Ranma could be a match too. We'll see. If I go that route, I'll pair Jaune, a Jaune who is a much better fighter than in canon, with Ruby. Think they could be adorkable (holy hell that's actually a word?) together.

8\. Some of the plot concepts used in this story can be traced back to _Professor Arc_ , by Coeur Al'Aran. I have given them my own slant of course, but would highly recommend that fic and all his others to my readers if you haven't already seen them.

thanks go to ultimaflare0 for editing these chapters.

* * *

 **Prologue: Explosives and Magical Items Don't Mix**

If Ranma was the sort of person to use the phrase 'now I've seen everything', then possibly being thrown back in time thanks to an old pervert crying on a magical item would've topped the list. As it was, it didn't, but it was high on his list of 'weird stuff I've had to deal with'. This was more a folder in his mind than a list, and a rather large one at that, but even in so, this current adventure was really out there.

Of course it had gotten worse when they saw the contemporary version of Happosai and Cologne. After his old man and Soun had their fun getting in a preemptive beating on the little sod, the girls had the bright idea of getting Cologne and Happosai together, since it was 'obvious' that Cologne had feelings for the little troll. Deep down Ranma doubted it was anything but the allure of the outsider, the unknown, but he'd gone along with the plan anyway. After all, if those two got together in the past, it'd certainly make his and everyone else's lives easier in the present, right?

 _We should've known it wouldn't work._ Ranma groused internally, watching as the two girls tried to make their Happosai cry. _The fact that his contemporary was a little pervert who preferred to fondle women's underwear or their chests rather than flirt with them should've given us a clue. Chaos follows that old pervert no matter his age, gotta wonder if it's some kind of curse, or maybe a secret perversion?_

Ranma shuddered suddenly, shaking his head. That last idea made far too much sense. _Ugh, what if he really likes getting beaten down like he does, at least if it's done by pretty girls anyway? Eughh, damn Hiroshi, why'd you have to show that magazine to me?! Need some brain bleach now._

Hearing a nearby scream of rage, Ranma shook his head, grabbing the excuse to leave those thoughts behind, where they would hopefully die an early death. "You girls better get a move on. I think Cologne's coming closer!"

Akane scowled angrily, throwing down the union they had been trying to use to get Happosai to cry again on the mirror, cracking her knuckles explosively. "Well, then I suppose we'll have to get do this the hard way."

To one side Genma and Soun nodded agreement while Cologne rolled her eyes at Happosai's contrary attitude. "The moment we need you to cry you don't want to when a moment ago you were bemoaning about how everyone was mean to you? Fine, you deserve the beating you're about to get a few dozen times over anyway."

"Gah, why are you all so mean to me!?" Happosai yowled, trying to escape Xian Pu's grip, failing as the lure of her bosom held him still just long enough for the others to crowd around and begin the beat down.

Just as they were about to start Ranma frowned. "Wait, why's the young Cologne coming this way, isn't she after Happy?"

He said that too late, because just as he did the younger version of Happosai, who Ranma mentally labelled as just Happy to avoid confusion, landed in front of them. Even now the sight of that diminutive little body, with the lank black hair and a face that only a mother could love, made Ranma want to laugh.

Behind Happosai came this time's Cologne. She was slightly less busty than Xian Pu but her dark blue hair was longer than her granddaughter's purple and she had green eyes rather than red. The big difference between the two though was the younger Cologne somehow conveyed a feeling of calm and serenity, while Xian Pu had a bubbly personality. That serenity was in stark abeyance right now though, instead her face was set in a rictus snarl as she chased after Happosai. "You get back here Happosai! You no steal from or fondle Amazon women!"

Just as Ranma opened his mouth to shout at Happy to back off, the little gnome bounded up over the group around the mirror, littering them with several of his ill-gotten gains. Much to the delight of his older self, who shouted "Sweeto!" and reached for several of them despite the others now trying to beat him into the dirt.

"I'd heard you were leaving, so consider these a going away present!" Happy cackled before running off again as fast as those little legs could carry him. Which, Ranma thought bemusedly as he removed a bra from his head, was actually quite damn fast.

"Yes!" Xian Pu shouted from behind him, as Happosai began to cry. The fact that Akane had just set fire to one of the panties that Happy had dropped and was busy tossing others into their camp fire probably had more to do with that than the beating Soun and the others had been delivering.

Cologne nodded, waving her walking stick. "Gather round, we have to go!" As she watched, Happosai's tears hit the mirror's face, which began to glow white with magical potential.

Ranma grinned, threw the bra that had been on his head aside, and was about to move towards the rest of the group when suddenly he had to dodge backwards. A huge battle axe slammed into the ground right where he had been about to step.

 _Where the heck did she get that? Does every Amazon know a variant of Mousse's hidden weapons technique?_ Ranma had been studying that technique for a while, and had come up with his own version though he couldn't organize it like Moose did, that took way too much energy.

"You no escape!" Cologne shouted, charging forward. Another smaller axe made Ranma leap away again, and in that brief moment the group around old man Happosai disappeared. The last thing he saw was Xian Pu and Akane's astonished faces as they realized they were leaving him behind.

Seeing that happen and realizing that he had no way back to his own time Ranma cursed. He really cursed for once in his life, using one he'd heard from an online show that Kasumi watched when she thought the house was empty. "Oh, fuck berries!"

As the words left his mouth Ranma ducked before rolling forward to dodge a scimitar blow that would have taken him in the back of the head. Cologne stood directly behind him, having crossed the distance from where she had thrown the axes that had nearly hit him while Ranma had been staring in shock at the space his friends had previously occupied. "Not know why you help Happy or why you meddle but ally of thief is thief in Amazon law! I not able take him back, I take you back!"

"How about no?" Ranma growled, rolling and kicking off quickly, throwing himself back towards Cologne as he twisted in midair to bring his foot around. This was a feint however, and he pulled the kickback midair using the momentum this caused to twist around as Cologne tried to skewer him with a scimitar.

Instead he smacked the scimitar to one side before bringing around a punch which connected with Cologne's jaw. Ranma's experiences against Xian Pu, Mousse and of course his own time's Cologne had given him a very high opinion of Amazon durability, so he knew that punch wouldn't hurt her all that much.

That and Ranma wasn't in an emotional state to care overmuch. Despite his habitual self-control and his upbringing which told him that all women were weaker than men, he had just seen his friends leave him behind in this past history. That was enough to get under anyone's skin and he was itching for a fight, especially against one of the two people who he could rightly blame for this disaster.

Cologne recovered quickly, coming back with a kick that aimed for his side, before segueing into a high kick and then a low kick in under a second, almost as fast as the Amiguriken technique. Ranma dodged the first, wasn't fooled by the second, but took the third right in the face, which flung him backwards slightly. Even so he rolled with it, dodging the next few punches that Cologne threw his way, pressing hard.

Smacking one of Cologne's arms out of position Ranma got in a shot at her stomach, which doubled the girl over. _Not as durable as Xian Pu, though quite a bit faster,_ Ranma's analytical mind told him, and he pressed in accordingly. The two exchanged blows for a time, pressing this way and that across the field where the time travelers had made their camp. All the while Ranma hoped that his friends would come right back.

It didn't happen. When they arrived, Happosai had made a break for freedom, only to be chased down by Cologne. The two of them had thought, and the mirror had fallen to the ground where Nabiki had stepped on it, destroying it before any of the younger set could warn her it was there. They had all rushed out to the Cat Café, hoping that Cologne had some other item that could let them travel back to get Ranma, but the odds were grim.

Taking to the air between one kick and another from Cologne, Ranma pummeled the girl from above, his aerial style completely negating her fast kicking speed and decent footwork. Cologne growled angrily, wincing as a blow took her high in the face right above one eye, but turning with the blow to grab Ranma under the wrist, pulling him down towards her for punch to his face.

Ranma however blocked it with his open palm. Grabbing her fist he twisted her arm around behind her as he landed, landing a blow to her back at the same time. He could've also broken her arm from that position, but he wasn't **that** angry, he just wanted Cologne unconscious right now, not hurt badly.

Even so Cologne refused to concede defeat. Dipping her body forwards and kicking out backwards she caught Ranma in the leg knocking him off balance just enough to rip her arm out of his grip. Continuing to fall forward, Cologne rolled, landing by her scimitar. Grabbing it up and turning quickly she brought it around in a vicious arc towards Ranma.

Ranma threw himself up over it, his hands flashing down to catch the blade on the backswing , shattering it with A series of Amiguriken punches. At the same time his leg lashed out, catching Cologne in the jaw that he'd already bruised. That blow finally seems to overcome the girl's durability, and her body flew backwards end over end for a moment before she slammed into the ground and lay still.

Seeing this Ranma panicked. He rushed towards her, kneeling next to Cologne's head then gently feeling for a pulse. Breathing a sigh of relief when he found one Ranma sat back on his haunches. "Tough girl, better than Xian Pu that's for sure, though her speed, power and skill isn't as high. Weird combination."

Cologne's own punches hadn't mattered at all, the kick to the face had been startling but not painful. Without Cologne using a weapon, Ranma could've just tanked her punches and kicks, but that wasn't Ranma style. He could also have ended the fight with a ki technique, or with a full Amigurken assault, but again that wasn't Ranma style.

Ranma fought his opponents as close to their level as he could whenever he could, considering every battle a learning experience. If you overwhelmed your opponents too quickly, you didn't learn anything. It was thanks to this method that he had learned Mousse's hidden weapons technique, several blade techniques from Kuno including the air pressure move, several dozen katas from Xian Pu, and a lot of other things as well over the years.

Tying the girl up just in case, Ranma then moved over to where his friends disappeared, tending the fire they had made just to make certain that it didn't go out of control. Then he waited.

And waited, and waited. The sun was going down when Ranma finally decided that his friends weren't going to get back to him soon. _Dammit, I'd hoped they'd be able to just turn around and come back, trust Happosai to make things difficult! Now what am I going to do? We're too close to Amazon territory for my liking, that hunting party that chased Happy is still out there somewhere and I just knocked out one of their clan members. I really,_ _ **really**_ _don't want to find out what the matriarchs of this time will do to me if they find me here, especially after the crap that Happy pulled._

 _But, if I leave, will my friends be able to find me? Any kind of trail I leave, the Amazons could follow too! It's a pity most of them already so my female form, or I could simply wait here in that._

After a moment Ranma shrugged. _I'll have to risk it I suppose, find someplace nearby so I can come back and check occasionally, but one that's out of the way enough the Amazons won't find me._

His thoughts broke off as Cologne stirred where she had been tied up, groaning aloud. Ranma moved over to Cologne, helping her sit up so he could look her in the face.

"You're not going to attack me again are you? I mean I'm willing ta untie you and let bygones be bygones, I even tried to you now gather those…" Ranma blushed. "The uh, the underthings that Happy left behind, we had nothing to do with him, we were just, um, my friends were just trying to play matchmaker 'cause they like doing that kinda thing." he ended rather lamely.

Cologne shrugged her shoulders and cracked her neck a little, looking away from Ranma then down at her own body before smiling slightly, and leaning forward catching Ranma in a surprise kiss. Ranma was on his haunches at the time, but he backpedaled quickly, blushing and staring at the girl, wondering if that was another kiss of death.

 _If so I'm damn sure not going to untie her, I'll leave a dagger somewhere nearby, and she can get herself back to her damn village._ Ranma's temper was a little frayed at this point.

But what Cologne said was even worse than Xian Pu's cry of 'you I kill' and the memories it brought back. "Wo ai ni Airen." She said simply, pushing herself to her feet and lunging after Ranma despite still being tied up.

Ranma backed away quickly, staring at her in panic. And not just the panic of having another Amazon after them like that, or what Xian Pu and Akane would do to him if they found out about it. No, he remembered what this woman would look like in the future, and that was enough to terrify anyone. _Blessed Amaterasu mouthwash, where's some mouthwash!_

With that in mind he backed away quickly, throwing down a knife by the fire. "Well swell but I gottta go that knife'll allow you ta undo your bonds see you!" Spitting that out as if it was one word Ranma then raced off taking to the trees and hopping away, simply trying to put as much distance between him and Cologne as possible. He also made certain he was heading in the same general direction Happosai had taken.

He didn't stop running until early morning, having traveled through the night as via the treetops. Since there weren't any arboreal predators in China that would bother with a human and Ranma's night vision was very good, he covered a lot of distance in that time.

Eventually he paused. Taking off his shoes Ranma leaped down from a tree overhanging a river, splashing into the water and changing to his female form with a sigh. Soaking her feet in the water for a moment, Ranma leaned back against the tree trunk, thinking hard.

 _Okay, so my friends haven't shown up, and even if they did, I don't think they'd be able to track me. Well okay fine Xian Pu probably could, she tracked me across China once already. But, should I simply find a place to hold up and wait for them? Or should I try to get myself back home?_ _Happosai has this timeline's mirror after all. Hell, it might actually be working better than our own given its younger and all. If so, it could get be home, couldn't it? That makes sense right?_

Ranma didn't know anything about time travel theories, alternate dimensions, or as one particular author from Britain would put, the trousers of time. All he cared about was whether or not it could get him home. Whether that would be the home he had left was something that didn't enter his mind. Enough ego can solve any time travel paradox. _But taking it from Happy is gonna be easier said than done._

 _Fighting Happy is always a chore, that little body means no grappling or throwing techniques can work on him. And while this Happy didn't seem ta have as much strength or speed as me when the old men were wailing on him, he's a lot trickier. And he probably has even more endurance than me, given how he's always running away. Against our timeframes Happy I'd be able ta outlast him if I could keep 'em away from women and their underwear, that ain't gonna fly with the younger version. And though I hate to say it, he's better at midair techniques that I am._

And boy, did Ranma **hate** saying that. He hated admitting he wasn't the best, but sometimes, well sometimes you had to face facts. Ranma knew he had a lot of training to go through yet to truly be the best, but admitting that aloud was really, **really** hard thanks to his old man's constant teasing, pushing and baggage. But his father wasn't here to call him a girl, or otherwise deride him. That made it easier..

However, his old man had taught Ranma more than his personal grab-bag of social inadequacies. _If a frontal assault won't work, ambush might. I hate to use that kind of tactic, but I think it's needed here. And Happy in either timeframe's real easy to figure out._ With a sigh Ranma looks down at her chest, shaking her head as she mentally went through the items of clothing she had in her hidden weapons space. _That one piece bathing suit might do, I'm in the past, so maybe that will be racy enough to get his interest?_

With that in mind Ranma stood up, wondering how he was going to track Happy down first. This actually didn't turn out to be as difficult as he feared.

This younger Happy didn't have any of the self-control or ability to hide his presence the older one had learned over time. Ranma had a very limited ki sense, something he'd only begun to learn a few weeks ago from Cologne as thanks for helping out at the Cat Cafe when he didn't have to, and it allowed him to find Happy easily. That, and the string of distraught farmwives helped.

Realizing that Happy was making for the coastline, on as straight a route as possible Ranma got ahead of him after only a few days travel. Figuring out where Happy would be next, Ranma searched around until he found a small pond, near what looked like an abandoned home, though why it was abandoned was not apparent. _Perfect._ After looking over the area, Ranma got his trap ready, placing large, hand-sized rocks everywhere around the pond hidden in the reeds. Once that was done, he changed forms, then pulled on a school issue swimsuit.

Jumping out into the water, Ranma splashed around for a moment, then dove down as deep as she could, before pushing up off of the bottom of the pond and coming back up. The water was cool and clear, fed by an underground spring of some kind, with several small fishes moving around in it, along with some turtles.

Ranma idly wondered what happened to the pond in the future because she didn't remember a spot this nice on his/her trip to Jusenkyou and back. _I doubt even with Xian Pu following us we would've missed this. Blech, probably drained or walled off or something, progress bah, you can keep it._

She stood in the shallows, wringing her hands through her hair and stretching for a moment. For just a moment, Ranma forgot the fact that this was a trap for Happy, forgot that he/she didn't really like this form. She just luxuriated in the feel of the water on her legs, the sunny day around her. And the fact that there was no one around. That was always a bonus these days. Ranma liked being around people, some of the time anyway, and he liked his friends. But moments alone like this were so rare they had to be treasured.

And living like this on his/her own, moving around, that had been what Genma had trained him for just as much as martial arts. The trip might've been to teach Ranma simply martial arts, but it had engendered in Ranma a wanderlust, which had not been getting fed since they had dropped into the Tendo's lives. _I seriously need to get away from Tokyo more often, maybe I can work out some deal with Cologne, I help train Xian Pu and she pays for us to get the hell out of dodge for a few days? Of course I'd have to deal with Akane for a bit, but I bet we could convince her to come along too. We've done it before after all._

Just then a loud "Sweeto!" sounded through the air ending Ranma's pleasant thoughts at the same time a small and very ugly body slammed into Ranma's chest. "So bouncy, so firm! And whatever you're wearing, it must be a fashion sent by the gods! Tell me where you got it every woman has to wear something like this!"

Ranma shrieked girlishly, trying to get away, flailing away at Happy as she fell backwards into the reeds along the pond's edge but that was all part of the plan. Her flailing covered one of her hands ducking into the reeds and coming up with a rock. A sudden powerful blow to Happy's head with the rock, and he was out like a light, not having anticipated anything from a demure redhead caught bathing.

As the little gnome slid off her body Ranma looked down at him shock. "The old coot really becomes more durable over time didn't he? Wait, blessed Amaterasu, that worked? Okay, note to self, sometimes plans work a hell of a lot better than you think, maybe you should try to make more of them rather than just assume they'll go wrong."

After a moment Ranma cocked her head and shook it. "Nah, I know my life to well ta think that'd work, my next plan'll no doubt just go wrong worse ta make up for it."

Grabbing the gnome she hurled him towards the ground around the lake, jumping out after him. Searching his person, Ranma shivered a bit before she found Happy's hidden weapons space in a small fold of his pants.

She began to pull things out of it, noting absently that she wasn't the only one that didn't waste the ki it took to organize the space. _Then again, I'm not the one that created it, so I doubt I could actually interact with the organization anyway. Is that even possible? Something ta ask Cologne I suppose. I've never seen anyone else try to pull out a specific item from Mousse's hidden weapons space and succeed either so it's a good theory._

Eventually Ranma had dumped out enough stuff so that he was able to find the Nanban Mirror. Ignoring the pile of stolen underwear, stolen jewelry and other expensive looking things, Ranma took the mirror. "Now, I just have to cry on it, and wish myself home right?"

With that thought Ranma left Happy by the pond along with all of his stuff, though he was tempted to set fire to the man's underwear collection. But that just struck him as rather cruel and unusual. _I've knocked him out, and stolen something from him already, no need to add insult to injury. Or would that be further injury to insult? I know how Happy thinks about those things after all._

Shaking his head from those idle thoughts Ranma made his way back to the small shack. He took the time to set a kettle to boil then headed out, hunting down some wild onions.

After transforming back, Ranma held the onions up, breaking them open with his hands right below his eyes, and felt himself almost immediately began to tear up, the tears quickly leaking down to hit the mirror. _How the heck did old Happy not cry when the girls were doing this to him?_

That was but an idle thought however, as under his fingers the mirror began to glow. The main thought Ranma at that moment was _holy crap, I planed something out, and it's actually going to work! Without a hitch!_

Just as the thought hit Ranma however, Happy burst through the door, his battle aura out and a burning Hapo-Dai-Kai-Ren in one hand. "No one steals from Happy of the Musabetsu Kakutō Ryū! How dare you prey on an innocent man's feelings!?"

With that he chucked the firecracker at Ranma, and the thing exploded on impact, knocking Ranma backwards. The explosion coincided with the mirror's white light expanding to engulf Ranma and he heard the tinkling of glass as the mirror shattered under the explosion's impact, as well as feeling the pain and the scorching heat of it on his own body. But worse was the fact the thought of home had left Ranma the moment the firecracker was thrown at him. Ranma had one brief moment to stare aghast at Happy from the floor of the hut while the white light covered him. "Oh I just know this just ain't gonna…" Then he was gone.

 **OOOOOOO**

Cologne stared at the three girls in front of her, shaking her head. Ukyo had somehow learned that something had happened to Ranma, and she had come running to help however she could. It had been Ukyo who had the idea of trying to gather up the mirror pieces, and thankfully Kasumi had kept most of them. Cologne hadn't found anything in her collection of magical items that could send them after Ranma, but even so…

"Girls using this mirror again is a very bad idea. Even with magic glue, there's no way it will be as accurate as it was the first time we used it. I cannot in good conscience let you try this, not even to get Son-in-law back. Let me contact my fellow elders, maybe call some of my other contacts in the magic blackmarket, we'll come up with something else…"

She trailed off, watching in shock as the mirror on the kitchen table in the Cat Café began to disappear. "Oh no."

"What this mean grandmother?" Xian Pu asked. But by their faces, Akane's and Ukyo both had already guessed.

"It means child, that Ranma might well be lost to us forever."

 **OOOOOOO**

The world of Remnant was an interesting place. It held several diverse cultures, a robust and equally diverse bio-system scattered across several continents ranging in size as such things normally did. It had a moon as large as Earth's that had in eons past shattered somehow, the pieces slowly moving away from one another and back together again now mimicking the phases of a regular moon. And it was home to two things which made it unique beyond even that.

The first were the beasts of Grimm. Soulless monsters whose origins were lost in the mists of time, the Grimm lived seemingly only to do one thing: kill humans. They were attracted to dark emotions, fear and anxiety most of all, with anger coming in a distant second. They came in dozens of varieties, some of which looked as if they were simply grotesque caricatures of normal animals, while others had no animal equivalent. All of them however were deadly to human life, which had forced the humans, and their biological subspecies the Faunus, to discover the second thing that was unique about their planet.

This was the substance called Dust. In simplest terms, Dust was the power of nature distilled into tiny, microscopic crystal structures, found in nature as large crystals or veins of ore. Humans developed the ability to harness dust in a myriad of ways, creating weapons, technology, and above all civilizations based upon the ability to use and manipulate dust to defend their borders against the creatures of Grimm. Civilizations rose and fall, like lights in the darkness burning and flaring out, but humans and Faunus went on, creating new lights as the old faded.

Yet for all the abilities Dust could give humanity, it was not magical, something the ancient scientist Monty Oum had first discovered by being able to quantify what dust was, its creation and the way it spent the energy inherent in it. The Oum System of Dust Measurement was still in use, and Monty Oum had become the pillar of science for all of Remnant.

Everything Dust could do had a quantifiable, noticeable drain on the Dust involved. Everything a semblance could do had a noticeable, and notable, drain on a person's Aura. Cause, fuel, and effect could all be noted and rated by observation. As such they were not magic.

Magic did not exist in Remnant. The magic of Jusenkyou, the magic that allowed Ranma's body or rather forced Ranma's body to change from male to female form with the application of cold water and vice versa **could not** work in Remnant. There was no framework within the universe for it to do so. And like in every other universe where something unnatural occurred, the universe itself rejected it in an abrupt and, admittedly, unusual manner. But the magic in Ranma's body did not go quietly.

" **GAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**!" Ranma screamed. He screamed in more pain, more **agony** than he had ever felt before. More than the pain he'd felt in the pit when his father had tried to teach him the Cat-Fist. More even than that time he'd been splashed with cold water while his lower body was in the hot tub, though the pain felt somewhat similar.

That was in fact what was happening. The magic of Jusenkyou was much deeper and stronger than Ranma or any of the others truly gave it credit for. Changing something on the cellular level to something else regardless of mass was beyond the realm of any sorcerer, and it had deep roots, whose connections to its victims were almost absolute. The magic in Ranma now fought back against the universe, and while it was losing, it wasn't going down without a fight.

" **GAHHHHHHHHHH**!" Ranma screamed long and loud, not noticing anything around him, not the buildup from his back, not the fact his ki was being depleted or the ground around him disappearing in an explosion of some kind. He simply screamed in torment and didn't stop until he collapsed into unconsciousness. Never once noticing what was going on around him. The battle between magic and this universe went on uncaring of the pain it was causing him, creating a truly bizarre occurrence.

How long Ranma was unconscious he never figured out. But when he woke his body hurt like he had just been ripped apart and sewn back together, badly. Groggily Ranma opened his eyes, rolling on his back to stare around him. He was in a crater around 50 feet to a side he guessed, both wide and deep. And it was lined from one end to the other in some kind of weird crystal, with several dozen odd figurines stuck here and there covered by the same crystal. The crystal itself was blue, though what it was or where it came from Ranma had no idea. As he watched, the crystal began to shatter, the blue draining out of it and then the crystals slowly dissolving from the edge of the crater inward.

But that was secondary to what Ranma was feeling. _By Hachiman, what the hell happened?!_ Looking down at himself, Ranma saw his clothing was utterly shredded. His front was fine, but the clothing on his back had simply disintegrated somehow. He couldn't feel anything but the crackling of tiny crystal on his back. Pulling off the remnants of his clothing with difficulty, shuddering at the pain of moving, Ranma paused again, clenching his teeth at the pain.

"Fuuu-gah…" It felt as if his body had been flayed inside and out, more pain than Ranma had ever dealt with before, and he shuddered at the memory of whatever had happened to them. "What the **fuck** was that!?"

He wasn't one to curse, but Ranma felt it was warranted at this point. Luckily his ki space was still around, his pants pockets having survived whatever had happened to his clothing. He reached inside and pulled out a change of clothes, before pushing himself to his feet and pulling them on with difficulty, pausing occasionally to clench his teeth at the pain. Finally he was dressed and Ranma looked around turning in place to take in more of the view, only then realizing that he wasn't alone.

Directly behind where Ranma had laid was a girl and at the sight of her Ranma blinked in shock. It was his female form! She was a little taller than normal he guessed, and of course naked at the moment, but that red hair and naked body couldn't be anything else.

As that thought permeated Ranma's mind he shook his head quickly. "Gross, don't look at yourself like that man, that way lies madness." Looking closer however he noticed one difference, a small streak of black going through her hair from above her left eye. Her hair also looked longer than Ranma's, but those were the only real differences.

Frowning Ranma stared around them, then at the girl then shuddered at the memory of the pain he gone through. This all pointed to something, but he wasn't certain what. _Is this my female form, was I, was I somehow separated from it? If so, were there any drawbacks, and how did it happen anyway!? All right, that pain wasn't exactly fun or anything, but I don't…_

He paused remembering the pain again and shook his head. "No, even if I'd known I don't think I'd've chosen ta go through **that** to get rid of my curse form." He shuddered at the agony he had felt then reached down gently, touching his female form on the neck. There was a pulse there, and he pulled back staring down at her. _Okay, so if she wakes up, is she going to be another version of me? I don't think she/he/I would be very happy stuck in a female form in that case. And I'm in no condition to fight if she tries everything. Then again, neither is she._

Shrugging he began to clothe her, closing his eyes and looking away as he did so pulling on one of the last two bits of clothing he had, a muscle T-shirt and another one of his silk pants. He didn't have any extra shoes however, which meant they were both out of luck considering the back of his had been destroyed by whatever had happened to his clothing.

When the girl was sufficiently clothed, he picked her up with difficulty, setting her on his back and wincing at the contact even through his clothing. Whatever had happened to them had really done a number on Ranma's body, but for some reason this crater was giving him the willies. Those strange crystal creatures, they looked almost like animals, but not quite. Whatever the case, Ranma wanted to get away from here.

Climbing his way out of the crater was hard, much harder than it should have been given how much in pain Ranma was, but he managed it and stood staring around them. It looked as if they had been magically transported to what looked like a mountain in rocky or even desert conditions, all or almost but not quite. It reminded Ranma of some of the pictures he had seen of the Hindu Kush in Pakistan perhaps, though he doubted that was where he was.

 _Well wherever the hell we are, I think I need to find some place to rest, quick!_ Ranma could feel his body beginning to give out on him again, despite how little actual exertion he'd made since waking up. And if there are dangerous animals or people around they're more likely to be down than up. So thinking Ranma turned, and began to make his way up the mountain, slipping and sliding through the hardscrabble rock and scree for a time until he found some solid ground above that. From there he found the going much easier, and eventually found a small cave that would suit as shelter.

It wasn't much of a cave, simply a small gouge out of the mountainside, possibly where a large boulder or something had been dislodged in the recent past. But it was big enough for the two of them.

Setting his female form down gently, Ranma checked for a pulse again and was pleased to find it going much faster now. _Good, maybe she'll recover soon._ "At least I hope your mind's a female too, or else this is going to get really awkward and really angsty very quickly."

Sighing he left her there and turned to stare out from their little cave. Try as hard as he could, Ranma couldn't see anything within sight that looked man-made or indeed anything that hinted that there were humans about at all. That wasn't really surprising given the territory, what was surprising was the giant bird he could see in the distance.

It looked like a crow or raven in shape, but even from where he was, at least two miles distant he guessed, Ranma could tell it was a lot bigger. A **lot** , like the size of a pterodactyl. "Okay, that is not a good sign," Ranma said aloud, his words echoing off the rocks nearby. Those echoes were joined a moment later when his stomach growled, indicating he was late with his offerings.

Turning away from the bird Ranma scanned the nearby slope of the mountain then looked up, frowning irritably. He didn't see any normal animals, but given his memory of screaming that probably made sense. "Probably scared off all the animals in a 50 mile radius," Ranma growled irritably, trying to overcome the memory of the pain with bravado, with limited success.

Still, Ranma had lived off the wilds many times with his father, and knew how to make traps. Reaching into his hidden weapons space he pulled out the remnants of the clothing he'd worn during the aborted time jump. Using that he created small nooses then moved around into some of the scrub brush nearby, getting down on his hands and feet and feeling the ground from on.

The ground wasn't wet, but there were plants here, which meant there might've been water here deep down. Ranma didn't want to dig for it however, believing that doing so would take more energy than he'd get out of whatever water he could find. Still, plants like this meant animals, and he scattered a few traps around well away from the small cave.

With that done, Ranma forced himself to climb higher, wanting to see as much of the lay of the land as he could. He couldn't go far though before his body began to give out on him, but he did discover one lucky find: a small bird's nest whose owner had fled, probably during Ranma screaming. There were four small bird eggs there, and Ranma gleefully took him, heading back to the cave where he created a tiny fire and began to cook them on a rock set nearby. They were small and not very tasty, but they were food, and right now was the important thing.

Ranma left one egg however figuring that if his other woke up a bit of a peace offering might be necessary. His stomach somewhat assuaged, or as much as it was going to get, Ranma leaned against the wall across from her at least body, and closed his eyes.

It was dark out by the time he woke up, awakened by the sound of his female form waking up, cursing something in Chinese. Ranma didn't understand what she said, it sounded like Putonghua, but it wasn't quite, the emphasis was in all the wrong places. _Maybe an ancient form of it? But wait, that means, oh thank Hachiman, my soul or whatever might not've been split in two that's good, I don't have a twin then or whatever._

This was proven when the girl opened her eyes and stared across at him. Unlike Ranma's deep blue eyes, her eyes were black, sharp and penetrating, entirely different from Ranma's. Clearing his throat, Ranma spoke in Japanese then Putonghua, a language he had learned to speak somewhat on his journey, then more later listening to the Amazons speak to one another at the Cat Café. "How are you feeling? And who or what are you?"

"I…" the woman began, then stopped her eyes widening somewhat before she went on in Japanese, her voice coming out faster with each word, sounding a little panicky at the end. "I am… I don't know…I remember some things. Not my name though, just, just images. What is this language I'm using?"

"Japanese." Ranma said his brows furrowing as he stared at the girl. "You saying you don't know Japanese?" Remembering the ancient form of Chinese the girl had been cursing in, he added, "That'd be Nippon I suppose?" He was beginning to form a theory about what had happened here, at least between the two of them not where they were, but he needed more information.

"I **shouldn't** know it but I, I have memories from…" the girl paused staring hard at Ranma covering her chest and suddenly looking angry rather than panicky. "From you! From the life you lead! You did not, you have **no** feminine modesty! Ugh, I feel **dirty,** what were you thinking, flashing people all those times, using my body like that!"

"Well I'm not female," Ranma said weakly, now he feeling a little abashed. "I'm sorry? I mean it was my body at the time so I thought, well, Anything Goes you know, use anything you can to win." Ranma said tentatively remembering all the times he used his female body to get a jump on someone or surprise an opponent, or and this was the most frequent sort of memory, scamming food from food vendors.

The girls sighed, and let her hands fall, though the rest of her body language was still defensive. "Not your fault I suppose, you were not born with it, I cannot fault you for not caring about my feelings, of course you did not know I existed at all."

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief, though it he wondered if the girl would've pressed the issue if the two of them had any energy to waste on a fight right now. Still, the impression he was getting from her wasn't anywhere near what he would've gotten if whoever inhabited that body was anything like Ranma envisioned himself.

After a moment he asked, "What exactly do you remember, I mean what're your memories of your, yourself I suppose? And you can have that egg. I don't have enough energy to hunt up anything major, hopefully some of my traps will get us some food. But tell me what you remember, and then I'll tell you where we are, at least as well as I can."

The girl frowned concentrating, speaking slowly. "I remember a fight. A fight over, over something **stupid**! I can't remember what, I can just remembered I thought it was so **stupid** to fight over it. I didn't want it, not at all, whatever it was. But Pedi-Cur, why can I remember her name but not my own? At any rate, she thought I did, that I wanted it like she did. She… ambushed me I think. At least I remember being surprised. And then I was…"

She paused looking up at him, her eyes widening. "I was tossed into a pool of Jusenkyou. I… I drowned…" She shuddered looking away.

Ranma leaned forward to pat her knee trying to give what comfort he could but hugging her or moving to do so felt too weird to him. Not just because he'd been taught to not be all touchy-feely by his father, but because she really did look like his female form and that was just too weird. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't've asked."

"No, you were right, you had to know I am not your female form or a piece of your soul, though I have your memories. My own personality is quite different from yours Ranma." She said smirking now as she almost visibly through off her dark memories. "Even though I don't remember my name, I certainly remember enough to be a distinct individual."

"You certainly talk fancier than I do!" Ranma said with a laugh. "So do ya think this means I was somehow un-cursed? And is that normal, I mean are there actual **souls** stuck in those pools?"

"At least the ones that have humans in them." the girl replied, nodding. "That was a well-known myth among the Amazons of my time." Before Ranma could ask she went on. "And I think I was born long before the time of your Cologne or Xian Pu. A remember my mother speaking of the journey we had taken to the Balakala mountains. We had very good magic users of our own who could tell us what Jusenkyou was. I remember how they were ecstatic about it, something about the cursed springs interfering with something else, though I can't remember what. But there are souls of its victims in those pools, sometimes more than one. That is why two people falling into the same pool won't have the same cursed form."

"So I no longer have my female form, I want to be clear on this." Ranma said laughing in relief. Even if he could have chosen to do so he wouldn't in his wildest dreams wants to go through that **pain** to get rid of his curse, but if it was true…

"Perhaps." she shrugged. "I cannot remember hearing about anyone ever being cured so I do not know. Now you tell me, where are we, and what happened? I do not remember everything you did, only bits and pieces from when you are male carry over… I think… Some of it is a blur right now, while other memories are all too clear."

Ranma winced again at the glare the girl was sending him, no doubt once more going over her memories of how Ranma used his female form. "Sorry," he said again before answering her questions in the hope she wouldn't keep going on about it. "You remember the little gnome jumping on us?"

The girl's lips turned up into a small but vicious smile. "Yes, that was a good ruse, and I remember laying the little pervert out, or remember you doing it, or whatever. What happened next?"

Ranma told her how Happosai had ambushed him later when he was crying onto the mirror, the explosion shattering the mirror, the white light and then the pain. The girl hadn't been awake during the pain thankfully, though her body was certainly paying the price for it. Ranma could tell even eating was taking a lot out of her, her arm shuddering as it lifted the cold egg to her mouth.

Then Ranma described the area as much of it as he had seen, ending the explanation with a shrug. "We might be somewhere in Pakistan or somewhere else in the Middle East, it's that kind of territory but I don't know. That giant pterodactyl, that's not something you'd see in those places. Least not in modern times anyway."

"Could we have traveled back in time then?" the girl scowled angrily. She broke off to say something in that ancient Chinses of hers, which Ranma couldn't quite follow.

What she said was, " **Stupid** fucking people using magic they don't understand. Magic isn't so simple like that, it always comes back to bite you on the ass! Why couldn't the Elders write **that** down as one of the rules of magic, don't fuck with it in big, blazing letters!"

The girl shook her head, putting one hand over her mouth for a moment as she thought of what she had just said. Ranma's personality seemed to have blended somewhat with her own, merging her at times foul mouth, which she remembered having, and a temper that she didn't remember having in her own life. But the memories of that life were so disjointed and distant at present, maybe she did have a temper and just didn't remember it?

 _I hope they start to become clearer as time goes on. Regardless, I can't remember enough of it to call myself anything even if I could remember my name. This is a whole new life for me, and that means I should take a new name, distance myself from my own memories the better to live this life to the fullest._

She looked up at Ranma and shrugged her shoulders. "I have no idea where we could be other than maybe back in time. But if we're in the past, we might never find any other humans, let alone someone who could help us get back. Would you be all right with that?"

Ranma ignored that question to ask his own. "We're in this together right?" The girl nodded and he nodded back. "Then yeah, I guess I can live with that if I have to." The conversation petered out after that, and the two of them soon fell asleep again.

 **OOOOOOO**

They rested in the cave for two days, regaining their strength slowly from whatever had happened to them, though Ranma was honestly surprised by how quickly his own strength and ki returned to him. Ranma had developed the Moko Takabasha and knew enough about ki to understand that he had a reservoir of it which could be used expanded or depleted. When he had woken up Ranma had felt that it was empty, but now after only two days of rest and not a lot of food, Ranma having only found two rabbits in his traps, he was almost back to full strength and still felt he could get stronger. Like his reservoir had been expanded somehow.

Coming back with their second rabbit Ranma plopped it down in front of the girl. She hadn't decided on a name, saying she'd have think about it. "When you're given a second chance at life, you should think about your name for a long time before labeling yourself," she'd said, "because names are important and powerful."

Ranma sort of understood what she was saying, and so dropped the subject. "Are you good here? I mean are you good if I leave for a bit?"

She looked up at him quizzically, cocking one red eyebrow. "Where are you going to go?" Even as she spoke her hands move forward plucking the rabbit from the ground and beginning to skin it expertly with a small flint knife that she had made. Ranma didn't have any cooking utensils or any camping equipment in his ki space unfortunately, save for a single large water bottle and some seasonings neither of them were willing to trust since Ranma couldn't remember where they came from.

"Up." Ranma said pointing up the mountainside. "I figure the higher I go, the better advantage I'll have in scoutin' the land."

The girl looked a little dubious at that, but shrugged her shoulders and nodded. "I will have food waiting for you… darling." She said teasingly, laughing at Ranma shuddered. Frankly both of them thought that was just wrong, though that had not stopped the girl from teasing Ranma about it a time or two, mostly to get back at the way he'd used his female form. After a moment however she went on much more seriously. "You realize we are going to have to leave soon? There is no water here, and it has not rained."

"I know," Ranma said with a nod. "I'd like to know what direction to head out towards first though. I'll be back."

With that Ranma turned and made his way up the mountain, finding the going much easier this time now that he had some of his energy back, leaping and running along as easily as someone else could walk on the sidewalk. _I can't get how good I feel now. I mean yes my body's still sore from whatever happened, but my energy's returned and then some, what the heck happened? Or, could Jusenkyou have weakened me somehow? Or taken some of my energy to keep her soul alive in me? That guess might be a little out there, but it makes sense, right?_

As he thought that Ranma had continued up to the mountain, but he stopped occasionally to take in the view. He also found it getting colder as he went, meaning he was getting really high indeed. Soon the air also began to thin, becoming even colder. Staring ahead of him Ranma looked around for any sign of ice or snow, which he could have transported down in his water bottle. But there wasn't anything, nothing except the side of the mountaintop and going further didn't seem to be a good idea.

He stared around, not seeing anything nearby that looked like human civilization, though he saw several large flying creatures in the distance. Not as large as the first one he spotted, these looked fatter in the body and longer in the neck but still the same general black shape. _Wonder what those things are?_

Suddenly Ranma heard a scrabbling sound behind him, and he turned to see something coming toward him, something he had never seen before. It wasn't an animal, Ranma was certain of that though how he knew it he didn't know. It looked sort of like a mountain goat, but instead of the horns going backwards, they were like that of the stag, all pointing forwards, their edges razor-sharp. It also had fangs which a goat of course wouldn't have, and a mass of bone white like that of its horns covering its face like a mask, along with red eyes.

"A demon goat? So does that mean we're in hell now?" Ranma scowled angrily at the very idea. "You know I know I've done a lot of questionable stuff over my life, but that's a little much ain't it? Or… did my old man so sell my soul to the devil somewhere along the line?" Ranma shuddered. "That makes far too much sense."

While Ranma was speaking to himself the demon goat had charged. Ranma dodged out of the way, his fist flashing to one side to catch the thing in the neck. There was a sharp crack, and it fell, tumbling down the mountainside its neck shattered. "Huh, that was easy…" Ranma muttered, going after the thing. They came to a stop several yards below where the demon goat had charged, and Ranma stared at it as it began to dissolve into little bit's and pieces of black smoke.

Scratching at his pigtail Ranma frowned. "Okay, that raises a hell of a lot more questions this place than I already had."

It was pushing evening when Ranma returned to the girl, arriving when it was already dark out. Ranma told her what it happened, and the girl evidenced just as much confusion as he. "I have no idea where we are still, but I think we are not in the past."

"How can you tell?" Ranma asked.

"Well," she said staring up into the night sky. "The moon is one clue."

Ranma turned, stared and then nodded slowly. "Yeeeeah, I have no idea how I missed that."

The girl shrugged. "We have both been so exhausted we haven't been able to stay up at night. But if your encounter with the demon goat is any indication, I think we need to take turns on watch tonight, and keep doing so in the future."

Ranma shrugged. "I don't know what that thing was, but if there are more out here that might be a good idea. Don't know how my sleep-fu would do against them." He did not however turn his eyes away from the shattered remnants of a moon high above them. "I don't think were in Japan anymore, Chihiro."

The girl kicked him in the side lightly. "Who are you calling Chihiro?" Then the two shared a laugh. Her memories were all over the place, but that one, watching Spirited Away with Ukyo and Akane, was one of the happier memories Ranma had from when he was in his female body.

Ranma took first watch using the moon pieces position in the sky as a timepiece, since he didn't normally have a watch on him or hidden in his hidden weapons space. When he estimated the night was around two thirds over he woke the girl up, heading to bed. The next day he woke to the sound of singing.

The girl's voice was **beautiful** and for a moment Ranma actually felt a bit of resentment. One of the few things outside of mooching food that he had really liked about his female body was the fact that it could hold a tune. In his own body Ranma couldn't hold a tune to save his life, and had no real musical ability.

But it was obvious the girl put his female body's abilities to shame, or perhaps used the physical skills of his female form far better than Ranma himself could ever do. The song was beautiful, Rin's version 'Sakura' sung with such perfect clarity that Ranma felt it put the trio of original composers to shame.

Opening his eyes he saw the girl sitting by the entrance to the cave, leaning against the wall as she stared out into the morning light. Smiling he said, "I think I found a name for you."

The girl jumped but he went on calmly, smiling at her. "Benzaiten. The Japanese goddess of music and other things."

The girl smiled. "Benzaiten," she mused, tasting the name on her tongue. "I like it. Though, I have to say that my voice is much better than it was before. I could've sworn at one point…" she shook her head. "Never mind, I think we've rested long enough, I can feel my chi has returned well enough to fight with if need, we should get moving."

"Ki." Ranma laughed, pushing himself to his feet. "The proper name is ki."

"Chi," she replied firmly. "The Chinese developed chi, developed martial arts based on it, long before you and your little island nation ever did, and we Amazons learned from them, adding it to our own skills and taking it to new heights."

"Whatever, least you're not calling it chakra." Ranma said with a shrug, exiting the cave to stand beside her. "We both mean the same thing and yer right, we should get going. But I still've no idea where we should go. I saw mountains that way." he said, pointing to one side before moving his arm in a wide half circle. "But other than that, I only saw rocky desert in every direction."

"You did not see any green anywhere?" the girl asked earnestly.

Ranma shook his head. "Nothing. We'll have to just trust ta luck."

The girls scowled angrily, but shrugged her shoulders. "Let's get a move on."

The two moved down the mountain as only martial artists could, racing down the mountainside leaping from rock to rock when they could and generally simply racing along faster than most humans could go for longer than trained sprinters could have. Soon they reached the mountain's bottom, where they found a small culvert in the ground where they chanced upon a small stream.

Ranma splashed through it without thinking before pausing in mid-step, turning to stare at it then down his own body. "I didn't change!" he said with a grin.

The newly named Benzaiten trooped through the water after them, looking down at her own body and smiling. "I did not change either, I thought I would not, but it is good to be sure."

Ranma leaped in place, bouncing around like a rubber ball on steroids. "Nevah gonna be a girl again!" he sang for a moment, then shook his head and pointed at the girl. "By the way, what are we exactly? Ya might have yer own soul, but that's my female form and you've got some of my memories, so we gotta be like brother and sister right?"

"Siblings work." Benzaiten replied with a nod. "Despite my having a share of your memories, we are certainly two distinct people."

"Then, sister I think we should follow the stream for a bit. Streams sometimes mean towns after all. And it's a better idea than heading out into what might be a desert out there."

"I… do not know about that." Benzaiten said with a frown. "If there was a town anywhere nearby, we should have seen some signs of it, unless they are hiding for some reason. But we **do** need water. Let us follow the stream, fill that water bottle of yours, and contrive some other way of transporting more. If we do not come upon any sign of human development within a day's journey, we should choose another direction and head away from the mountains."

"Sounds good." Ranma said, and the two went on their way, first exchanging theories about where they could possibly be then coming up with a way to create simple water containers out of wooden slats joined together. Ranma's martial arts construction skills came in handy here, allowing him to create small water stoppers as large as his forearm from slats of wood cut from nearby trees, then fit them together in such a way that they became watertight.

As they walked by the small stream they worked on these containers. Benzaiten eventually asked a question that had been on her mind for some time now. "Do you think your friends will find us? I remember them as being very persistent. And while we are on the subject, you were rather idiotic with those three girls, you do know that right?"

"I don't need ta hear that from you of all people!" Ranma barked back, scowling angrily before sighing and staring off to one side. "What was I supposed to do? Xian Pu thought I loved her, or thought she loved me anyway, but I remember the months and months of her chasing me down tryin' to kill me! Sure, she's nice and all when she isn't tryin' to kill me, and I'm not exactly blind, I know she's pretty but come on! Frankly I got along better with her grandmother than with her."

"Until you went back in time and met her younger version at least. I find it hilarious she gave you the kiss of marriage as well." Benzaiten laughed. "But what about Akane or Ukyo?"

"Ukyo, well thinkin' of her as a girl is still a bit weird to me. I mean, I always thought she was a guy when we were growin' up y'know? Then she just shows up, fights me, then because of one compliment think everythin's back to the way it was? And people sometimes call me weird."

As Benzaiten laughed rather ruefully at that, Ranma paused for a moment, staring down at the piece of wood he was cutting. "As for Akane… I don't know. Maybe eventually there could've been something good there, I mean she was cute, whatever I acted like I wasn't blind to that. But I know she had a problem with my female form, or maybe just how good I am at martial arts, or, or how much attention I took off her. We clicked sometimes, but other times, it was like we just couldn't get along, our personalities always lockin' horns. I don't know." he broke off, shaking his head.

Benzaiten put her arm around his shoulder, giving him a comradely hug. "You do not know how to interact with people normally, and you do not know what attraction is either, beyond the physical I think. From my own memories of your life, I can tell you did not love her." She stared off into the distance. "I remember being in love, though not with who surprisingly. Just the **feelings** evoked. What I get from your memories with Akane is more of an infatuation sort of feeling. You liked her, but you didn't love her yet, or vice versa. It could have become that in time, but I think as time went on you were also moving further away, further behind the barriers you both threw up. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, I get it I guess. I mean, I know I wasn't ever able ta express my feelin's or whatever the books Nabiki read went on and on about." Ranma shrugged. "I was obligated to marry her, and that was held over our heads which, with our…"

"Emotional baggage?"

"That works. That, the old men, all the rivals, all the random crap, and our own emotional baggage, I don't know what we would've become in time." Ranma visibly shook those thoughts out of his head. "Anyway, ya asked if I think they'll ever find us, the answer's no, I realized that pretty quick after ya pointed out **that**!"

He pointed up into the sky, where the moon would appear that night. "We're not on Earth. Then there's the fact there's no way they can re-create the accident that happened ta us, and even if they did, there's no way they could arrive here, since it was an accident in the first place that sent us here."

Ranma shook his head, this time like a martial artist shaking off a hard blow to the head. "Nah, I'm going to miss them, but there's no way they're going to find us. Besides, Not having my cursed form is sort of worth it." he smirked looking down at Benzaiten and giving her a sideways hug of his own. "Not worth the pain I went through there, but worth not meeting them again."

For some reason he was much more comfortable around her than he was around, well anyone really. It was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, though what it could've been Ranma didn't know. Maybe it was the fact that she understood his life so well, having lived it with him. Or maybe it was because he was now away from all the obligations, real, contrived or self-made, and could start a new life. _Yeah, come to think of it, it's probably that last bit._

Benzaiten laughed, pushing away. "Typical guy! Emotions are secondary to physical things?"

Ranma shrugged. "I am what I am, and now I'm going to stay that way even if I jump inta some water." Ranma said with a laugh, jumping into the spring for a moment and then back out.

The two of them continued to walk and laugh now, exchanging jokes and getting to know one another. Benzaiten turned out to be quite a bit more of a prude than Ranma had first expected, given the jokes she had been making about their situation at his expense. After he splashed her with some of the water she insisted on the two of them exchanging shirts, so that her chest was no longer visible through the white muscle T-shirt Ranma had given her.

Benzaiten also apparently had more than a singing voice in terms of musical talent. She could remember playing several different string instruments making her name even more appropriate, and being part of a show put on at a court somewhere at one point.

However she had little to no woodcraft, and couldn't spot any of the edible plants like Ranma could, going out of his way to pick them up and stashing them in his ki space. She didn't have one of those either, though she was proficient at martial arts, a quick ten minute spar told him that much. Benzaiten was slightly slower than he had been in his female form, and quite a bit weaker, but she had all the moves he did, all the training. But Ranma didn't think she had his instincts for combat. She didn't seem to be as fluid as he was, able to change from one style or mode of attack to another one the fly.

The spar ended abruptly when they heard a loud growl from one side of the stream they had been following. Out from the scrub came some kind of creature which looked like the goat demon, but it wasn't goat shaped. It was almost humanoid, crouching low to the ground with long claws and fangs. At the sight of the two martial artists it howled, and dozens more came out of the woods all around them.

Cocking his head Ranma stared at them. "What the hell are you things anyway?"

Benzaiten turned, putting her back to his. "They look unnatural is what they are. Do you think they're going to…?" She didn't finish that question because it was answered as the things charged forward, all of them at once from every direction.

Ranma laughed and charged too, smashing one aside with a hard punch which flung it backwards over the heads of two more, before leaping up over a slash from another, kicking out hard sending that one flying. Using the impetus from that kick Ranma flipped in the air to land on top of a third, smashing down into it with both feet on its back.

By this time Benzaiten had dealt with two more, using a crescent kick which smashed one's skull in as it charged at her. Like Ranma she used the impetus of that kick to push into the air before grabbing another thing's arm twisting bringing it with her. Landing behind its back she shattered its shoulder, kicking out at another who tried to turn to attack her.

The battle continued from there, but didn't get any more even, the black and white things simply weren't fast, durable or strong enough to bother the two martial artists. Eventually they finished off the pack of whatever they had been. As the last one dissolved, Benzaiten scowled angrily. "They are demons. Only demons are not consumed, returned to the earth when they die."

"I don't know, I'm going to go with science experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong." Ranma said with a faint smile, smirking as the adrenaline of the fight left him. "Or perhaps some kind of disease or mutation effecting animals. Let's get a move on, we're burnin' daylight."

Several hours and two more clashes later the two martial artists stopped once more. "I still say they are demons!" Benzaiten said gasping a little, wincing as she worked one of her shoulders.

Ranma shrugged, looking down at the side of his arm which had been opened by a stray claw strike from one of the creature Benzaiten had accidently let get behind him before dunking it into the cold water for a moment and wiping it away. He stared as his ki healing began to go to work quickly, far quicker than it ever had before. He liked it, he liked a lot, but Ranma was still wondering why his reserves were growing beyond where they had been before. "Yeah they're weird I'll give ya that. So, I think we're going the wrong way, you?"

Benzaiten rolled her eyes, and the two of them finished filling the latest containers then Benzaiten turned Ranma in place with one hand extended. When he stopped he was pointing in different direction. She looked at it, noted it was away from the mountains and the stream then nodded. "As good a direction is any."

The two walked off, in that direction still arguing on what to call the strange creatures.

 **Chapter 1: Journeys and Learnings**

The new, if rather strange, sibling's journey continued for several weeks as they left the mountains, descending into and then making their way across a desert. As the two had feared water was nonexistent out here, though they haven't anticipated the sheer number of the strange black and white armored beasts. There were several varieties, the most dangerous being a giant scorpion type that occasionally showed up as they cross the desert. It didn't seem to hunt with sight or sound, possibly feeling the vibrations through its skin as it hid underneath the rocks and desert sand.

The first time the scorpion type had ambushed them had been out rather harrowing experience since it had caught Benzaiten by surprise, smacking her aside and nearly pinning Ranma underneath its weight which was considerable. But Ranma had been able to lift it enough to get out from underneath the flailing legs shattering several of them as he went, then put the things eyes out with a Amiguriken assault.

After that Benzaiten had come back landing on the things back striking at it with a stick she had taken to using to direct her wind pressure attacks, much like Kuno whose technique it had originally been. They bounced off its armor, creating cracks but not penetrating, but her movement had attracted the things attention enough that it tried to stab her with its scorpion tail. Leaping clear, the scorpion had stabbed itself.

After that Benzaiten and Ranma both knew what to look for. Small disturbed areas on the sand, slight humps out of the sand or rocks pushed out of the ground, all could point to a scorpion being nearby.

There were other monster types of course. There were small lizards about the same size as a large dog who roamed the desert in packs, four limbs, small masks and long tongues, and monstrous lizards that looked like a Komodo dragon only many, many times bigger, with longer claws, club tails and heavy armor covering their faces and shoulders. The second variety sometimes worked or led the smaller lizards, but not often. There was also what looked almost like hyenas, except hyenas didn't have white masks, or spikes sticking out from their sides and back, or could walk on their hind feet for short periods. But this variety stopped the further they got from the mountains, replaced by more of the small lizard types.

"What I don't understand," Ranma said smacking aside one of the small lizard demons, before bringing up his foot to kick another in the face shattering its mask and the skull underneath it. "Is why are there so many varieties of the things, and why aren't they competing with one another?"

"I don't follow." said Benzaiten, sitting up on a rock well away from the conflict as she stared up into the sky, her eyes narrowed on the specks she saw up there. They had seen several flyer type demons in the distance, but hadn't been attacked by any of them just yet, so she had volunteered to remain on lookout while Ranma dealt with the latest attackers.

Ranma was much happier fighting the things than she was. He claimed to be learning things from them, but Benzaiten didn't know what, other than new and easier ways of killing them, which she didn't particularly care about. She sighed, adjusting the makeshift hat she had made for them, sighing irritably at the heat.

But that was precisely the point really. Ranma was indeed learning those things, as well as some bits about how the different varieties thought and acted. For example, the small lizards had a group mentality, not unlike a wolf pack, but one that was much more willing to sacrifice its own members to reach its goal, in this case killing him and Benzaiten. They were also somewhat smarter than they should be for their size too, putting the hyenas to shame.

In contrast the giant scorpions were simply loners, not working with any of the others except if they attacked the two travelers at the same time as them. But they could afford to be solitary because they were patient and tricky, hiding in places where they shouldn't have been able to given their size.

Ranma brought down a punch onto one creature which lunged forward trying to bite his chest, using the momentum of the blow to flip into the air and over the heads of several others before landing behind them, his fingers flashing out. There was a weak point right at the back of their necks that the Iguanas seems to have, where even a medium-sized blow would shatter their spines.

With the current threat dealt with, he turned to Benzaiten. "I mean, in nature animals compete for one another if they're supposed to fill the same niche I think? Like there's supposed to be a alpha predator in an area, then below that're scavengers, below that prey, you follow?"

Benzaiten nodded and he went on. "These things though, they don't seem to compete with one another. Why would the little lizards allow the smaller scorpion types in their territory? They fill the same area, scavenger or beta predators. They're also a lot more single-minded about attacking us in they should be! If they're simply animals, animals should learn not to attack us, or at least have some idea of running away."

"It's like they hate us," Benzaiten said musingly. "I haven't seen a single one of them run away yet, even when they are overmatched like that last group of small lizards who tried to ambush us at night, or the group of the smaller scorpion types." Those had been around the same size as the lizards, but far deadlier even though they haven't worked together given they had even better ambushing skills than their larger brethren. But like the Iguanas , there was enough differences between the two to make it clear they were distinct, different species.

The Iguanas however suffered a much worse fate. Genma had trained Ranma to such a degree that even when sleeping he would react to someone trying to attack him, even going so far as to respond in similar manner without waking up. And Benzaiten had somehow gotten the same ability. The Iguanas had died to a creature with the last only living long enough to watch Benzaiten wake up to go to the bathroom. The cold of night on the desert was a worse enemy than any of the monsters to the two martial artists, but even that was solvable by enough fire warmed pebbles placed under their clothing.

"Exactly. And, I think I've seen a few camels in the distance. If those really are camels, they'd make much easier killing than us."

"So are we drawing them to us somehow, or are they purposefully hunting only us? If that is the case, I am much more inclined toward your idea of a science experiment gone wrong than I was earlier." She smiled suddenly, hopping down to join Ranma. "Or perhaps an out of control military weapon of some kind that has infected animals?"

Ranma laughed, and the two of them moved on, racing through the desert as only marital artists could. Going in as straight line a line as possible, they eventually traveled so far that the mountains they had arrived at were no longer in sight.

Their bodies soon acclimatized to traveling in the heat of the desert, and they didn't sweat nearly as much any longer. Ranma took a few birds on the wing with small stones and Benzaiten had been proven surprisingly adroit at hunting, surprising a camel.

But despite their speed and husbanding their water, they had gone through more than two thirds of it before they found their first side of civilization.

It was a road, a simple highway of some kind, raised off the normal desert floor by four foot of solid granite and stone. It traveled roughly east to west from where they intersected it, heading away into the distance. "And where there's a road, there's bound to be traffic." Ranma said with a laugh of relief. "It looks as if we haven't gone back in time somehow."

Benzaiten jumped up onto the road, tapping it thoughtfully with foot and nodding her head slightly. "It looks fit for road traffic, but which way?"

That was indeed the question, and Ranma frowned staring off into the distance west before turning to face the other way along the road towards the east. He tried to remember from which direction they had come from, and where the mountains were in relation to their current position, but in the end could only guess.

Eventually he shrugged, turned and made his way along the road in one direction going, he hoped, further away from the mountains they had arrived in. "One directions as good as the other I suppose. So long as we find something at the end of it."

Benzaiten nodded, and jumped up onto the road falling into step with him. Then as they began to run, she sang a walking song from her youth, speeding them on their way.

The two of them made their way down the road for several more days, slowly going through their remaining water supply. But thanks to Ranma knowing how to travel in the desert, and Benzaiten creating makeshift hats for them which protected their neck and faces from the sun, they were able to make their way relatively easily now. They were still attacked by monsters of course, but not as many, and the large scorpions, the most dangerous breed, seemingly had no interest in the road or anything on it.

Several more day's journey passed they heard a rumbling in the distance. It was coming from behind them, though at first they couldn't tell, the echoes over the desert being so strange. Turning, both of them saw a giant truck, about as large as a three story building, moving across the road. On its top was a machine gun of some kind. It swiveled this way and that staring out into the desert as well as above. "So those things are a common problem then." he mused aloud, causing Benzaiten to frown for a moment before she got it. "It's not just us they attack. Interesting."

The driver of the truck saw them, and soon enough the truck came to us long halt. Ranma and Benzaiten both tried to ignore the fact that the machine gun had centered it's eleven barrels on them, as the door to the giant truck opened.

A rather fat balding man stared out at them, one eyebrow raised in surprise, while a woman pushed out of a small living area behind the driver and copilot seat. "What the hell are you too young'uns doing out here!" he demanded.

But not in Japanese or Chinese. No, the man spoke English, with an accident Ranma had never heard before, but still English. _Weird,_ Ranma thought to himself, _though possibly it's even weirder that wherever the hell we are there's_ _ **any l**_ _anguage that's like anything back home. If this isn't Earth anyway._

Ranma quickly stepped forward, raising his hands palm out in token of greeting and showing that he had no weapons, coming up with a halfway believable lie on the spot. "I'm Ranma, and this is my sister Benzaiten. The two of us lived with our old man out in the mountains that way," Ranma said, pointing (hopefully) towards the mountains they had arrived in. "He trained as on how to fight, and had some really weird ideas about some stuff, he liked the isolation. But when he died, the two of us decided to hit the road, and here we are. Don't suppose you'd give us a lift would you?"

The man's brows furrowed, scowling lightly at them. "There are bandits around, not many'll chance the Grimm but those who do sometimes try to attack trucks like mine. How do I know you're tellin' the truth?"

"So long as you carry us, we'll be happy to ride on the top of your truck." Ranma said with a shrug. "We don't have to ride in the cockpit with you and your… wife?"

The man frowned but at a tug on his arm from the woman nodded slightly. "You two don't seem armed, and I've got a soft spot for young'uns wantin' to see the world. But how'd you survive out here all on your own, and why are you doing the talking, your sister there got nothing to say?"

"One of those little weird Ideas I mentioned was our father didn't teach us English." Ranma said with a shrug. "I learned from a book, but Benzaiten here can't speak it at all. She can understand some, but not much." Ranma had learned English before he got his curse after spending some time on an army base, but had not used it in Nerima or ever with his female form, so Benzaiten had no memory of it.

The man nodded, as if it made perfect sense. "Vacuo makes all sorts, yer story ain't the weirdest I've ever heard. Don't suppose you have any papers, IDs I mean? Most jobs, you'll need him."

"Fraid not." Ranma said with a shrug, as the man turned away and reentered his cockpit. The two of them made their way over to the side of the truck, leaping up onto the top of it with ease.

The man looked up whistling slightly. "Well, your old man might've had some issues, but he seems to've trained you up to be right good Hunters. If you can jump that high and survive out here in the desert you'll be able to pay your way soon enough."

"Will you need our help for anything to pay for our trip?"

"Nah," the man said shrugging his shoulders. "It don't cost me anything save a few moments tah stop, but a rule in Vacuo is if you don't earn you got pay, ya know, so you'll have ta help guard us, pay her way that way."

"But you just said we might need papers to get jobs." Ranma said frowning slightly while Benzaiten sat next to him, looking between the two of them and not following the conversation at all.

"I.D.'s won't matter here in the desert kid, but the big city and the other nations though, they'll need papers for near everything, and eventually most people yer age want ta see the world for a bit. But I wouldn't go to Atlas if I was you, bunch of stuck up prigs over there. If you don't got a paper telling those busybodies when you were born, when you first walked, where you trained, and where you last took a shit they don't want you there!"

He guffawed at his own joke while his wife rolled her eyes as he turned to his controls. "Better hold on tight, this things a little faster than you might expect."

Ranma nodded, and turned to Benzaiten relaying the conversation to her. "We probably should think that English is the go to language here. I can teach it to you, okay?"

The girl nodded, and the truck drove on below them. It didn't move nearly as fast as Ranma and Benzaiten could, but even so it was better than running. The group of truckers even shared some of their food.

They learned the driver was named Barnum Opal. He apparently worked for a Dust company, whatever that was, transporting Dust from one of their mines back to the Big City. The way he capitalized the Big City was interesting to Ranma, as was the way he also used the name Vacuo for the desert and the city interchangeably. He wondered if they were in a day of city-states or something similar. Ranma had enjoyed reading about the wars the Greek city-states fought, his kind of people really, so it had stuck in his mind more than most history lessons.

Barnum's wife was name Dusty. She was co-driver, co-shooter, cook and handy-woman. The third member of the truck's crew was named Derek Blue, and he seemed a little smitten with Benzaiten. Though whether or not that was caused by not having seen a woman in weeks according to him, or Benzaiten's good looks Ranma didn't care to know. Luckily the former Amazon hadn't noticed, or else the results might have been bad.

All in all however, their journey had certainly become much easier. Not that their trip was without incident, which allowed Ranma and Benzaiten to prove their worth to Barnum.

The first incident came without warning in the dead of night, dozens of black birds falling out of the sky high above them towards the moving vehicle. Ranma, who was on watch, stared up at them then kicked the top of the gun's swivel slightly. "We've got company coming from above!"

Derek rushed up into his position from where he had been dozing in a cot set directly below it. A second later the gun was on and he whirled the gun upwards, firing a stream of ammunition straight up. Ranma couldn't tell anything about the ammunition in question, it was going too fast for even he to make out, and he had never made a study of guns in any case.

But when the streams hit, they bisected two of the flying creatures wings, sending them plummeting down to the ground. Direct hits on their stomachs however proved ineffectual, bouncing off the white armor, which gleamed in the fractured moonlight. The rest of the attacking flock scattered, and as fast as it could move the pintle mount could only deal with one or two at a time.

The others closed in from above them, slamming into the truck momentarily before punches or kicks from Benzaiten and Ranma killed them. This close, Ranma saw they looked like monstrous vultures, long necks, fat bodies, and small heads. The underside of the neck, head and body were covered in heavy white armor, fending off any attacks there, but not from behind. "Benzaiten, help Blue keep them off us, I've got close in protection."

Benzaiten nodded, grabbing her stick. After the weeks spent working on it from where she had been with her flint dagger, it now resembled a very crude wooden sword. She slashed it through the air, and the pressure wave caught one of the flying creatures directly on its beak, sharing through its head in a welter of black blood which quickly dissipated in the night air.

"Derek!" Ranma ordered, taking charge for some reason which at the time eluded him. "Cover the back 180, Benzaiten's got the front, shout if they get too close."

With that Ranma went to work on attacking two of the monsters coming in from the sides directly towards the center of the truck, flying almost nape of the earth. Leaping out into space Ranma smashed into one of them, grabbing onto its beak and flipping himself up onto its back. Slamming his fist down with Amiguriken speed, he shattered its cranium, before pushing off its suddenly falling body moving onto the next target.

He remained in the air for the rest the battle, which seemingly threw off the attacking Vultures badly. Vulture was the name of the breed going by what Derek told them. They were large, fat, and, as Ranma had noticed, had a lot of armor on their undersides and heads, which made them dangerous to land-based enemies. Only high-powered cannons like the Gatling gun or Benzaiten's air slash could get through their armor, and even then it took several shots from the Gatling, nearly a full 2 seconds of sustained fire.

But they didn't have any armor covering their backs or their wings, which allowed Ranma to have a field day with them. Eventually he rode the last one down to slam into the desert, leaping off at the last second to roll along the ground kicking off easily into a run as he raced towards the road. The truck stopped obligingly, and Barnum opened his door looking down at Ranma then up towards where Benzaiten was standing on top of the truck, while his wife leaned back from the wheel, her eyes wide and staring. "Damn glad I stopped." he said simply. "Your old man trained you damn well to be Hunters kid. Those vultures would've gotten us if not for you two."

Ranma grinned at the man then leaped up to join Benzaiten on top of the truck before smacking his open palm down on top of the truck. "Move along little doggie!"

They were attacked three more times after that, but the combination of the swivel mount Ranma and Benzaiten saw them through. The Grimm were dangerous no doubt, but the common varieties weren't dangerous outside of huge numbers against Ranma or Benzaiten.

However, Derek told them that vultures were basically the middle class of the varieties you could find in the desert. "I don't know why your old man wouldn't tell you the classifications, but whatever." he said one evening as the truck moved on the three of them taking a meal together out top of it while Dusty took another turn at the wheel. Barnum was asleep, as was his wont when not driving.

"They go E up to A class, and then there's the S class, the specials. E through B're basically the normal varieties of Grimm, which can move up that ladder as they age. The younger a Grimm is, the less dangerous. That's why you've got Iguanas and Big Mamas."

Iguana was the name for the pack based lizards that Ranma and Benzaiten had met so often, while Big Mama was the name for the giant Komodo dragon look-alikes.

"But Grimm keep on changing the older they are, getting stronger and changing their shape somehow, I don't know how I'm not a Hunter. But one thing is known to practically everyone, the older the Grimm the tougher."

Ranma nodded understanding the point but asked, "So what's A-class?"

"A class are the next level, area dominators basically the oldest Grimm in the area. They've either survived or evolved or something and are much more dangerous than the rest. They can control other Grimm to a certain extent, and some of them develop more weapons than normal. They can think, plan ahead you know, not like animals which most of the Grimm're like."

Ranma nodded again, already used to the monsters being called Grimm by this point. "And S?"

The man shivered. "S-class is a step above A. Grimm so old and ancient they've learned patience."

"Death Stalkers are patient." Ranma objected, using the name Derek had used on the giant scorpions, who it turned out were simply upgrades of the Scorpio's, the smaller scorpion type. This despite looking and acting entirely different outside of their enjoyment of ambushing people.

"No they ain't." Derek said shaking his head. "Those big'uns are lazy, big difference. Death Stalkers will attack you if you come near, they won't go out of their way to move around to attack you unless they feel a lot o' fear or anxiety somewhere nearby. A and S class though, ya gotta understand the difference between the two ain't so as clear cut as between the other classes? They know how to wait, how to bide their time, stay near a target, watch it, and wait for an opening."

"Worse, S-class can control other Grimm, sometimes even create them. The Dragon type's known for that, they can create other flyers." The man shuddered a little. "There was a dragon that led an attack on a small settlement down south called Altar Rocks three years back, it created enough Grimm to overwhelm the defenses so quick even Vacuo couldn't get aid to 'em before they fell."

Ranma nodded his head thoughtfully. "What A classes could we run into out here in the desert?"

"The desert's home to more B-class Grimm, not many A-class." Derek said, smiling slightly. "Thank your god of choice for that. Most of the A class monsters live out in the real wilderness, beyond the borders. Here in the desert, you could run into two types of A-class monsters. One of them is the Death Spitter. Think a Big Mama, only about two-thirds the size again, with a massive frill of armor all around its head. Then imagine it can spit acid so deadly it can chew right through metal. And they can spit it accurately and over at distance.

"Not a good combination if they're smart about it." Ranma mused.

"They are." Derek said grimly. "Luckily they're damn rare, or else traveling like this over the desert'd be impossible. And then there are the Leos." He shuddered a little shaking his head.

"Leo's?" Ranma said gently motioning the man to continue while Benzaiten, who was only getting around to out of every seven words frowned at the man as well.

"Leos are something different entirely, they're really S-class Grimm, and are just as rare, but they don't have as much physical strength as most S-class, so they ain't classified as such. I said that most A-class'ld be able to command the Grimm, but Leos do something else, no one knows what, as y'know studying Grimm isn't exactly good for your health. But they make the Grimm around them stronger, faster, like they were all injected with steroids almost. Somehow they're also able ta get all of the different types of Grimm not just fight together but **work** together like a pack would. Death Stalkers don't help Scorpios, and Death Spitters don't help no-one, but with a Leo around they would, they'd all fight together like a pack of Beowulf's or Iguanas."

"What do they look like?" Ranma said after a moment. He didn't like that idea, not at all. Tactics you could make up for one type of Grimm wouldn't work on another, and it sounded almost as if the Grimm would become like a combined arms squad, very tough to combat.

"Like lions, only the size of a bull elephant, major spikes all around, and their masks look like something out of nightmare" Derek recited. He shrugged "Ya gotta understand, very few people live to tell about Leos, so there's not much recorded about what they look like. Like I said though according to the books, they're not as durable most S-class types out there, like Vale's Goliaths. Those are just massive monsters which can soak up any kind of punishment you care to name and keep on coming, dumb, but powerful. But Leos are **fast** , they're smart, and they're aggressive as all hell. Every time one of 'em's seen, it takes large groups of Hunters ta deal with 'em and even then most times the death toll's horrible."

Ranma nodded, and change the subject to Vacuo itself, wanting to learn about the city they were heading towards. It turned out Vacuo really wasn't the name of only city but the name of the city and the land as well.

Just like Ranma had suspected the nations here in Remnant (why it was called that Ranma didn't know) were more city-states than real countries. The countries consisted of two different areas. One was the city that gave the country its name. Then there was the rest of the country, which served the city giving it the food and other raw goods, particularly Dust, which the city needed. There were small cities and towns out there that could be sizable, but none that could be independent of the larger city, relying on it for a variety of things.

The countries of Vale and Vacuo were defended by natural defenses as well as Hunters, specially trained warriors who would go out and slaughter Grimm to defend other humans and Faunus, whatever they were. Those natural defenses consisted of the mountains that Ranma and Benzaiten had appeared in, massive mountains which kept most of the Grimm out of the countries. Not all of them of course, but most. After translating that, Ranma had shivered, not wanting to know what numbers the Grimm out there could come in if the numbers he and Beni had seen so far were any indication of the numbers that could be seen inside the kingdoms.

Ranma asked about them, and Derek shrugged his shoulders. "Just people of another stripe man, just people of another type. Other nations might have a problem with them, but here in Vacuo, as long as you're tough enough to stand the desert we don't care what you look like. Not like those bastards up in Atlas. Bunch o' stuck up prigs."

The next few days passed quickly, and soon enough they saw a low and extremely sheer mountain range in the distance. Soon however it resolved into a massive crater of some kind, and by massive Ranma meant that he couldn't see the edge of it the thing as they closed, it was so huge. On the other side of equally massive gates was a city, large and sprawling, with dozens of different architectures that Ranma noticed while they drove through the outskirts towards a large building with the words Desert Dust on its front in massive neon lights.

Barnum pulled the truck to a stop, and he, Dusty and Derek all got out, watching as Ranma and Benzaiten leaped down from the top of the truck. Several workers were already moving towards the back, and one man with a clipboard was coming towards them. Barnum held out his hands to Ranma and Benzaiten in turn, shaking their hands firmly. "If not for you too, that gaggle of vultures would've had us, and this'd been the last ride of Barnum and Dusty."

Next to him the normally silent Dusty rolled her eyes at her husband's attitude, but didn't say anything. Barnum went on quickly. "Look, I'll give you two directions to some bullheads that'll take you to Semaphore. It's a school for young Hunters. I noticed Beni here needs more learning in English, and you need ta know geography, writin' and other things. And yer both unarmed, that ain't gonna cut it long term."

He held up a hand as Ranma made to scoff, shaking his head. "Now hold up there, I realize you might not think that's worth much in a fight, but Hunters need to know more than just killing Grimm. They need to know how to work together, they need to know what weapons to take into what situation, they need to know where they are, the history of the place, maybe even the language. Hunters from one nation can be called on from all the others, and all those Hunters need to pass the primary schools before going on to the bigger academies."

Dusty broke in then. "Only after you graduate from the bigger ones will you be accredited a full Hunter." She smirked. "And going to Semaphore will start a paper trail. That might not matter here, like my husband says but it will matter in Vale, let alone Mistral or Atlas. Bunch of stuck up prigs."

Ranma chuckled. Every time Atlas came up in conversation the Vacuoans would tack those words on at the end. There seemed to be something between the countries, and Ranma wondered if they'd had a war in the past, or simply had differing social views.

But in terms of what he wanted to do with his new life here, there was really no choice. Ranma loved to travel and he firmly believed that the purpose of the Art was to help defend people who couldn't defend themselves. He could do both of those things as a Hunter, possibly with the help of locals if he actually became one. "All right, that does seem like a good idea for us." Ranma said looking over at Benzaiten

He relayed the conversation to her and after a moment's thought she nodded. "I would like to learn about this aura and semblance things Derek has mentioned when seeing you and I fight."

Ranma nodded, though he had put or down as simply another way of saying ki. Semblance however, that he was getting some **interesting** vibes from. Unlike Grimm however Derek didn't know much about semblances, simply that every one of them was unique to an individual, and based on their aura. Not a lot to go on.

So the pair of them nodded, and Barnum set them to following one of the workers. Soon enough they were on a small flying vehicle called a bullhead, heading out of the massive seaside crater that held Vacuo heading south towards. They rode for three hours in the bullhead before they came to a giant mesa, on top of which sat a small city and what looked like a large school, its sprawling campus taking up a good quarter of the mesa.

The school was situated at one side of the mesa, with a low wall separating it from the nearest edge of the mesa. It held several dozen buildings spread out over the rocky ground of the mesa, with only a few strips of green here and there denoting grass and bushes, and several large cleared areas separated by other low walls. The largest building was four story tall building shaped like an H that presumably held most of the classrooms. The second largest was a large gymnasium.

The city was far less sprawling. Most of it looked much like everything else, with two story tall buildings made of stone or brick, with heavy roofs that hung over where Ranma supposed their doors were. Other than a few large buildings that were obviously factories Ranma couldn't tell which buildings were businesses and which were homes. That was all Ranma had time to notice before the bullhead was on the ground.

The moment the bullhead's doors opened they were met with a guide who brought them immediately into an empty classroom. After filling out some very simplistic paperwork, the two were given various tests to see where they should be placed. They passed the combat tests to get in easily enough, and indeed impressed the instructors so much that the two of them were placed with the senior class combat class rather than the entrance-level class, which Ranma translated as freshman level. However the rest of their knowledge was below even freshman, and both of them were going to have to struggle for a bit to keep up thanks to having no idea how to read the language.

"But don't expect any extra help from your teachers. We here in Vacuo don't do that, if you can't hack it, it's best we learn it now." The principal, an elderly woman with a friendly face but stern clothing, and a noticeable limp, told them. She walked with the aid of a long staff, taller than she was, made of metal and seemingly stuffed with some red Dust. There were apertures on either end, and a place in the center where more rounds of Dust could be loaded at any time. Her name was Dorothy, and she was called the Flame-crafter.

Ranma and Benzaiten nodded, though Benzaiten looked apprehensive. She was already learning a new language, and having to actually take tests and classes in it was going to be very difficult.

This was proven their first class with the freshmen. The first class they had was history, the verbal portion of which Ranma followed avidly, learning about the history of Remnant, in particular the history of Vacuo and it's scattered settlements. Benzaiten didn't follow much of it, something one of their neighbors noticed. He was a young man around fourteen or so, with blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed in decent fitting armor over a t-shirt and jeans.

He nudged Benzaiten, trying to gesture that she could follow along in his book if she wasn't understanding what was being said, but she shrugged incomprehension, and Ranma leaned over her (an easy feat considering her height) whispering "Thanks for the offer kid, but Beni can't read, neither of us can. I was taught how to speak so I could haggle, but Benzaiten didn't learn even that. She's learning a bit now, but…"

The kid looked at him in shock then nodded. "You're from way out in the desert? I've heard of some weird communities out there. Especially some of the one's that've developed their own fighting styles, those make for some of the strangest stories you ever heard." The youth's diction was clearer than any local they'd since met, but he seemed friendly enough.

Ranma thought about the Anything Goes School and the people who practiced it. "Yeah… yeah, let's go with that." After that however Ranma had to turn his attention back to the teacher, nudging Benzaiten in the side, indicating that she could look at his notes later since he was writing in Japanese. .

The class ended, and the younger boy turned to them, smiling slightly and holding her hand. "My names Jaune Arc, short, sweet the ladies love it."

"To they really?" Ranma asked with a smirk.

"Well, my sisters do." Jaune said with an embarrassed laugh. "Everyone else, I guess we'll see."

"How many?" Benzaiten asked looking at him then it Ranma.

"How many sisters is what she's asking."

"Seven, two sets of twins, and three singles." Jaune's said with another laugh, though this time there seemed to be a bit of undertone to it, though neither his listeners caught it. "But at least the second set of twins is younger than me."

Ranma relayed this to Benzaiten, who laughed. She asked in halting English, "Big families normal?"

"Depends on the area I guess." Jaune said standing up and motioning the two newcomers to follow him. Since he had sat next to them Jaune supposed that he was elected official guide for the day. "And my parents can certainly afford it." Ranma cocked his head at that at and Jaune shrugged uncomfortably. "If I ever invite you over, you'll see why, trust me."

So the day went, the three of them taking classes together, with Ranma taking notes down in Japanese in those classes that interested him to share later with Benzaiten, while he and Jaune followed along with the conversation and Benzaiten grew more and more frustrated.

She took that frustration out at the end of the day in the senior level combat class, while Jaune went off to the freshman. In this class they were pitted against other students, and Ranma winced as Benzaiten slammed a huge student, who was pushing 7 feet tall at least to the ground with a single punch to the chest. The man flew across the room to slam into the wall with enough force to leave a dent and she huffed angrily, cursing under her breath.

Not that that was an isolated incident. While this might've been the advanced class for Semaphore, it certainly wasn't advanced for Ranma and Benzaiten. They didn't have weapons, which put them at a disadvantage at range, but they were simply too fast, too strong, and above all too mobile for seniors to deal with.

The combat instructor took them aside afterwards, shaking his head slightly. He was a tall man, with two floppy dog years sticking out of his head. On his back he wore a large circular shield, and at his side he wore a long, curved sword, a tulwar if Ranma's guess was accurate, plate armor covering his chest, and two pistols at his side. Both pistols looked like six shot revolvers from the old west, but the cylinders looked to be loaded with Dust rather than bullets.

The ears though were the bit that made Ranma cock his head to the side for a moment. _So this is a Faunus._ Ranma thought then internally shrugged. He'd seen weirder. Benzaiten too seemed to disregard it after a single glance.

When the man spoke, he had a crisp, clear accent, at odds with the laid-back tones Ranma had heard from the majority of Vacuans so far. "All right you two, it's pretty obvious that your combat abilities are well above what we can teach to here. So we've got two choices. One is to pair you with teachers to spar with from now on, which would be fine if any of our teachers didn't have classes to teach. But we don't have enough instructors here to let that happen. I'll devote some time on Saturday to working one-on-one with you two see if there's anything I can teach you."

The man shook his head, staring at a readout of the two newest students' aura levels. "Not that I think I'll have much honestly." Both of them had **monstrous** aura reserves, more even then Amethyst Arc, one of the Arc sisters and the only one currently at the school a senior.

The Arcs were known for massive aura reserves, and for being very peculiar about when they unlocked there were children's auras. They were unlocked on their sixteenth birthday, not a moment before. Most students in the Academy had their auras unlocked before they arrived, but Jaune, the man knew, did not. But since that was a decision by his parents, he didn't care too much. Amethyst hadn't had hers unlocked until she was sixteen, and it hadn't held her back much.

 _Although I would certainly like to not have a repeat of the free-for-all she started the day after. Sixteen students in the hospital and a recording released on Dust-net of assorted students crying for their mothers as she gleefully laughs at them, our school's reputation took a major hit from that abroad._ In Vacuo the response was somewhat different of course.

The man shook off those thoughts with difficulty. "On the other hand, neither of you have weapons. I know Benzaiten has that stick of hers, but that's not a real weapon is it?" Ranma and Benzaiten both shook their heads. "Well then, you can use the combat class to either watch the other students, or research your own weapons. I'd recommend a mix of both."

Ranma nodded. "Seeing how other people fight is always a good idea, it'll give you insight into tactics and strategies that you can then add to your own repertoire, even if those tactics or strategies would work on you."

The instructor blinked but nodded, surprised at that level of insight from someone like Ranma, who he had pegged as a simple adrenaline junky. "Exactly. We're not like some other academies where we demand that our students make their own weapons, but we do encourage our students to find their particular style, and to always have at least a gun on them. I'd suggest you look at all of the weapons your classmates have, decide broadly what variety you could see yourself using. Then we've got hundreds you can try out to get a feel for them later. And if you want, we also have facilities where you can try to make your own."

Benzaiten nodded eagerly at that. In her previous life she had been trained on several different weapons, and was eager to get back into it. Ranma nodded too, which would have surprised most anyone who knew him back in Nerima. Ranma didn't particularly like weapons, feeling that weapons upped the ante in a fight whether you wanted it or not, and that no weapon was as flexible as your own hands and feet. But against Grimm, any weapon would be a help. _A long range weapon of some kind, have to start training myself on guns._

He said that aloud, gesturing to Benzaiten. "We're good with our hands, but I think we'd both benefit from learning about guns and marksmanship."

The teacher, whose name was Aaron Pendragon, nodded eagerly. "Excellent, that's an area I can help you with, so we'll wait a few days and then we'll put together a real schedule all right?"

Ranma nodded, and the day continued.

After classes were over, they found Jaune sitting morosely in the cafeteria. The cafeteria served both lunch and a dinner meal after classes, since most of the students boarded here. Ranma and Benzaiten had been offered a room too, though since it was several weeks into the school year they'd have to wait for a room to be found for them.

They sat across from Jaune, staring at him. "What's up kiddo?" Ranma asked.

"You're not that much older than me." Jaune growled a little, looking up angrily, his face set somewhere between a snarl and a frown.

"Three years." Ranma said with a shrug, "besides, it's not so much the years but the mileage. Seriously, what's wrong? You look as if someone kicked you where it hurt."

"I **suck** at combat class!" Jaune said with a growl. "I've been training with my father and mother as often as I can, well, it's not often, but anytime I can, but most everyone who comes to Semaphore comes with years of experience being personally tutored or from a lower school. My parents kept me home and schooled me there so I'm good for most of the other classes, but the combat classes are kicking my ass, and I don't like it!" He looked away, thumping the table a few times with an angry fist.

"Why so angry about it?" Ranma asked, while Benzaiten looked concerned. She too had heard that tone of voice, though had been unable to follow most of what Jaune said. There seemed to be more to it than just simple irritation that he wasn't keeping up with the class. Jaune didn't seem the sort to care for grades overmuch if his falling asleep in math was any indication.

"My whole family has been Hunters as far back as memory goes. Our great, great, great grandfather was a hero in the Colors War, and my grandfather was a hero in the Great War, and my parents both fought in the Faunus Rights Revolution fighting for the Faunus, and I've got uncles and aunts and other ancestors who've fought against Grimm incursions here there and everywhere! My two older sisters are already accredited Hunters with a dozen combat missions to their names! My next eldest graduated from here year ago and is already making turning a name for herself. And Amethyst is following in their footsteps, a straight A student here and good to graduate first in her class this year!"

After Ranma relayed this to her Benzaiten frowned, trying to place the name then smiling faintly, remembering one blond girl with extremely long legs and a tendency to laugh as she sparred with her opponents. "Is that the one with the sniper rifle that changes into a glaive?"

"That's her," Jaune said morosely. "I've wanted to be a hero, a Hunter ever since I could read, but it's just… I don't seem to have any of the instincts or anything! I mean I've been training as hard as I can on my own, but my parents won't help me unless I beg, most of my older sisters are too busy, and…"

Ranma held up a hand stopping the man from speaking. "How good're your grades in your other classes?"

"Well we haven't had many tests yet of course, but I'd guess B's and C's mostly, except for math and history, I can guarantee I'll get A's in those. I'm even getting pretty good on designing, though we won't make our own weapons until next year."

Ranma nodded thoughtfully. "How about this then: the two of us are way above senior level in combat, but below freshman for nearly everything else. You help us with learning how to read the local language, and we'll help you with combat."

"You do that for me?" Jaune asked astonished.

"Hey, way I figure it, it's a trade." Ranma said with a shrug. He could speak English, but not read or write it, and any help in that direction or with Benzaiten, was a good thing.

The trio agreed to me early the next day before classes began so that Jaune could start tutoring the two of them in how to read the local language. Jaune was sitting in the cafeteria at the same table they had met yesterday afternoon, his head on the table as he seemed to be speaking a mantra to himself. "Mind over the body, mind over the stomach, keep it down, mind over the body..."

"Are, are you okay?" Ranma asked, while Benzaiten began rubbing the boy's back comfortingly.

Jaune looked toward them, his eyes closed as he seemed to grit his teeth to keep something down. "I get motion sickness, being in the air makes me want to puke. I'm a commuter, so I go through this every day at least twice." He shook his head, then in an effort to change the subject asked. "Do you guys board here, I didn't hear any other bullhead arrive." The cafeteria was directly next to the loading zone for the bullheads.

"We will be, they're tryin' to make room for us now, but until they do, we're just camping out on the rooftop over by the gym." Ranma shrugged.

Jaune frowned at that. "You should've said something! I can put you up at our place for a few days, easy!"

"Nah, we can't ask you ta do that." Ranma said shaking his head quickly.

"Seriously, you wouldn't be an imposition." Jaune said laughing lightly. "We've got the room."

Ranma relayed this to Benzaiten, who frowned slightly. "I think I know a cure for motion sickness, if it's the same kind of thing that people get when they are seasick from moving on a river?"

With a shrug Ranma relayed this back to Jaune who smiled happily. "See, right there that right there would be enough to pay me for putting you up at my place easy!"

Benzaiten nodded. "I'll look around in the kitchen for the ingredients, I should have some by the time class lets out. For now, let's start learning okay?"

That first day Jaune started to teach the two newcomers how to read and write, before leaving that to Ranma and talking with Benzaiten, teaching her the language as Ranma had been doing since they'd learned what the local dialect was. Later that day, while Benzaiten was working with Aaron on ranged weaponry Ranma joined the freshman combat class, taking Jaune apart from the rest of the class and beginning to force him through some strength exercises, though they couldn't do much in the limited time frame of a combat class. Still, it gave Ranma some hope. Jaune might complain at the beginning, but once they started he obeyed Ranma's instructions without further issue.

Lunchtime found the trio sitting together once more, ignoring the odd glances shot their way about the two newest, toughest fighters sitting with the freshman class's wimp. After only a day Ranma and Benzaiten had carved their place on top of the social hierarchy, but they didn't care. For Benzaiten, that was because she had died as a 25 or something woman (she refused to be more accurate than that). She had the mind and mentality of a woman that age, and found most of the seniors uninteresting, with a few notable exceptions. But even with those, she was unwilling to rush into friendships so quickly.

For Ranma, he was really unconcerned about making friends. If it happened it happened, but he didn't want to have friends like Hiroshi and Daisuke again, who Ukyo had once called his 'followers' rather than friends, which Ranma had reluctantly come to agree with since. Besides, learning about Grimm and how to kill them was much more interesting.

After classes ended for the day, Ranma and Benzaiten both worked with Jaune, running him ragged as they got an idea of his athletic level. It wasn't very high, but it was okay, good enough to start with, around the same level as the normal martial artists back in Nerima. Ranma put together a training regimen for him, which he would follow for five months before Ranma would start him on weapons.

"But what if the combat instructor tells me to start pairing up with the other students and spar with them? I'm happy for your help, but I was hoping for, well, some super-duper move or epic badass assault or something." Jaune said, smiling a little sheepishly, yet hopefully.

"Nope, sorry kiddo. You have to put in the sweat and the time to get better Jaune, that's all there is to it." Ranma laughed.

"So you won't be unlocking my aura for me." Jaune said with a side. "Dammit! Everyone else is too scared of what my parents will do to them to do it, ugh I have to wait another year…"

"I haven't even figured out what unlocking your aura means." Ranma said with a laugh, which Benzaiten shared. They both still thought of aura and ki as the same thing, but the idea of unlocking anything like that was bizarre to them.

After all, a person's ki could be somewhat blocked with the correct pressure points, but it certainly wasn't natural to start that way. Although, Benzaiten mused, there were stories about some kind of Inner gates that locked away people's life energy. But if so, then both Ranma and myself have probably opened them anyway.

Jaune frowned, but then shrugged his shoulders simply assuming that the two students had their auras unlocked at some point in the past but didn't remember it. "So are we done for the day?"

"Nope." Ranma said with a laugh. "That was just a warm-up. Now we start getting serious." He flicked a small stone in one hand, then he shot it at Jaune's feet causing him to twitch and shout leaping into the air. He stumbled, then glared at Ranma who merely chuckled. Then he picked up a small tennis ball. "These better?"

"What exactly are you training me here for?"

"Speed, reaction time, and overall coordination. After that, I'll start you on a few general katas." Ranma spouted quickly. "Now no more questions. Dodge!"

By the time that portion of the training was over, Jaune was a quivering mess, and had to be helped towards the bullheads. One of them had a pilot who was sitting outside, and he looked at Jaune in shock. "When you said you were going to get some new training to try'n keep up with the other kids boyo I didn't expect you to train yourself into the ground!"

From where he was on Benzaiten's shoulder Jaune muttered something unintelligible. Ranma merely shrugged his shoulders. "You the pilot who's gonna take him home?"

The man's eyebrows rose. "Does this look like a regular school bullhead to you?" he said pointing a finger over his shoulder. "I'm Victor Green, I work at Arclight as one of the farm's pilots."

Ranma blinked and batted, then looked over at Jaune. "Arclight?"

 **OOOOOOO**

The motion sickness remedy that Benzaiten came up with that day worked like a charm. So Jaune, despite every part of his body battered beyond all recognition came in to class the next day happy and willing to continue the arrangement.

From then on the trio's days settled into a routine. They would show up at school early exercise for a time then have breakfast together. During class Jaune would do his best to keep Ranma awake in the Writing, Math and Science classes, while the two of them would do the same to Benzaiten during history. Then either Benzaiten or Ranma would meet up with Jaune during training combat class while the other practiced their own. Benzaiten learned the language well enough to follow the verbal portion of the classes easily enough after a few weeks, but the written portion still bothered her months later.

After school ended, the trio would train Jaune some more, then send him off back to Arclight, sometimes with his sister, sometimes not. Amethyst became good friends with Benzaiten, bonding over a shared joy in clothes and music, but not so much Ranma, who she didn't have much in common with. Then, after Jaune was gone, Ranma and Benzaiten would practice together until Benzaiten retired, then Ranma would practice until the sun set.

Indeed, Ranma became known for his insane training regimen quickly. He would wake up, go on a run throughout the city over the rooftops then do some weight exercises in the gym before meeting Jaune for the younger boy's training. Benzaiten in contrast was not a morning person, and never woke up earlier than she could help it, nor was she as insane as Ranma was about training.

Months passed like this, with Ranma and Benzaiten reluctantly coming to the conclusion that they could no longer learned tactics or strategy from the other students or even the teachers. More than once one of the teachers would have time spar with them, only to face the fact that they couldn't keep up with Ranma or Benzaiten's sheer speed or strength. As one wag put it, 'their base stats are too high!'. There was some talk that the two of them had a family semblance which allowed them to pour their aura into their own bodies, adding to their strength, speed and reaction times, but neither of them cared to comment.

After a few months Ranma had learned enough of the local language to start reading on his own, looking up books about Grimm and about aura. The books about Grimm were confusing. Ranma wanted to know where they came from, when their attacks had started, what their life cycles were like. All things that should have been known, after all, know your enemy was one of the oldest military/martial arts wisdoms out there.

There was some about the life cycle of a few of the small kinds of Grimm which could evolve into larger ones, but nothing about specific time frames from changing from one type to another, or how a leap from one subgroup such as Iguanas and Big Mamas, to another occurred. Worse, they didn't know where Grimm came from. As far as any of the books could tell you, Grimm simply came into being. There was nothing about how they propagated or mated or whatever. And as to when they had started preying on humanity that went further back than recorded history. It was a little weird to Ranma frankly: that people had thousands of years fighting the Grimm but didn't know much.

On the other hand there was a lot about Aura, and he finally figured out what everyone was talking about when they said 'unlocking'. It was ki, and yet it wasn't either. Ki couldn't defend your like aura could, preventing you from taking damage like that automatically, that was a technique you had to learn to do with ki, not something you could do automatically.

 _Unless they mix it up somehow?_ Ranma thought after reading yet another book on Aura. _Like I know my body's been trained ta be tougher than most through endurance trainin' and sparring with my old man, that's given me more durability than aura could, but it doesn't seem ta hurt as much through aura as it does with me. And my own healing ability is way above what they describe here. Still seems a little off to me though._

And there was nowhere in the books anything like his Moko Takabasha or the other ki attacks he had seen. Ranma had tested out the Moko Takabasha, and found he could still do them here in this weird alternate dimension/planet/place/whatever. There were attacks that could let you pump your aura into your opponent, but the effects varied wildly, and none of them except Semblance types, were distant attacks. _Nah, give me ki any day._

It was Benzaiten however who found Aura most interesting. Specifically because of the semblances which put practically any ki based technique to shame. Most of them were not as flexible, but their effects could be much more powerful. She also had an idea that maybe she had one. She sometimes got a feeling when singing, a sort of heavy feeling in the air, which could point to it. Even without that though, her voice had garnered Benzaiten a lot of attention, almost as much as Ranma and his training regimen.

After four months, Ranma finally decided that Jaune was ready to train on weapons. He took Jaune into the school's armory, and gestured around. "Let's start with the hand-to-hand weapons then move up to the others."

"Have you chosen yours yet?" Jaune asked, picking up a poleaxe like one of his sisters used and almost tripping over his own feet when he tried to make a cut with it.

Ranma quickly grabbed it out of his hand, pushing Jaune's grip down the shaft with one hand and up with the other, so that he hold held it more like a pole arm rather than a greatsword. "If you hold it like this, remember it's got both ends you can use, just because ones blunt metal doesn't mean it won't hurt if you hit someone with it. Try again."

Jaune did so, but even after a few practice moves got the end stuck between his feed and tripped once more. "Oh come on!"

"So no polearms then," Ranma said with a laugh, grabbing the weapon out of his hand. "Next."

Jaune moved down the row searching though he turned to look over his shoulder. "You didn't answer my question."

"I'm a horrible shot, so guns are sorta out for me." Ranma admitted with a shrug. It kind of irritated him that that was the case. He tried to use the sniper rifle, then the regular rifle, then a machine gun. He could sort of aim the machine gun, at a short distance around 100 yards, but anything beyond that he had trouble hitting. It was a weakness in Ranma's combat style, but a small enough one given his mobility.

"I'm thinking of a shotgun for myself, maybe with an underslung grenade launcher. You can't go wrong with things that go boom!"

Jaune tried to imagine the kind of shotgun that Ranma, with his massive strength, could wield and shuddered a little. _That thing could probably take out a B-class Grimm with one shot!_ Shaking his head of such thoughts he reached forward, picking up a sword much like the family blade his father used. He had been given a replica of it to take to school, but wouldn't be given the real thing until he proved himself as heir. Despite his seven sisters their family was actually patriarchal. This meant he was the one in line to take the family name. Not that his sisters cared of course.

He wielded it for a moment, going through one of the practice swings his father had told him several times before moving on to a sword kata that Beni had shown him. Ranma watched, thinking. "How does it feel?"

"It feels okay I guess…" Jaune said after a moment. "Not sure what you're asking."

Ranma shrugged. "I don't know myself really, I've never been trained with weapons, I've just picked up a lot of the skills over time, no formal anything. But they're supposed to be a sort of feel to it when you've picked up a weapon that you can make a part of your body and style in combat."

Jaune frowned then shook his head. "I can't feel anything like that, it's still just a weapon to me does that make sense?"

"Sure, maybe I'm wrong, who knows." Ranma said with a shrug. The two of them continued, but eventually they decided to stop for the day. When it came to weapons at least, Jaune would be on his own, since Ranma didn't know enough about guns or even other weapons on to train him in their use or figure out what he was best suited for. Benzaiten, for all the fact that she had been trained with weapons in her past life couldn't help them much either. She was having a lot of trouble with the ranged weapons herself, despite having training as an archer.

Just as they were leaving, Ranma stopped, staring at what looked for all the world like a yoyo stuck onto a built up vambrace of some kind. "What the heck is that?"

Jaune looked where his friend was pointing and frowned. "No idea."

Intrigued Ranma moved over to the item, holding it up and pulling at the yoyo portion. It was a vambrace fit to go over someone's forearm, with what looked like half a glove with small pressure plates on the inside. The outer portion of the vambrace was a built up rectangle slopping at the back, with the yoyo stuck into a front aperture.

To his surprise the yoyo came out of the aperture attached to a piece of string or something that was so thin Ranma could barely see it. "Or is it wire," Ranma murmured, intrigued.

Looking over his shoulder Jaune blinked. "That's monomolecular wire. Huh, I didn't think we had anything that old. Mono-wire was popular for a while before the Great War, but since then it's fallen into disfavor. Using it is supposed to be incredibly tricky, and its also really dangerous to use around your allies."

Ranma pursed his lips thoughtfully, then put on the bracer. "Ya might want ta stand over by the doorway for a bit." He waited until Jaune was well away then with a flick of his arm shot out the yoyo. The mono wire followed with a slight zoom sort of noise. A twitch of his palm brought it back, the wire reeled in by a small motor in the vambrace.

Getting a feel for the weapon, Ranma continually flicked his hand, sending the wire this way and that, learning how far it could stretch, getting used to the very light weight of the yoyo and how it acted in the air. Finally, he flipped it so the wire first cut through several unused armor stands in one corner of the armory, then flicked it forward to wrap around the last one. With a tug the mono wire cut straight through the metal stand before Ranma reeled it back in. "I like it, it's sneaky, deadly and light. I like this a lot."

"Somehow I doubt the Grimm will though." Jaune laughed weakly, wondering at the destruction Ranma could commit with that thing.

Another few months passed, with Benzaiten finally learning enough of the local language to begin reading on her own. The lessons with Jaune stopped at that point, and his training stepped up in compensation. He was showing a marked improvement in class, and now when the teachers called on him stepped forward eagerly to try his luck against his fellow freshman. He even won a few matches, not many but some.

One day, flush with us at the success Jaune sat down across from Benzaiten and Amethyst at a small table at in the cafeteria. "What are you working on Beni, sis?" Jaune asked, while Ranma sat down beside him, nodding to the two.

The two women smiled at the two boys, gesturing them into the table alongside them. "It's a stringed instrument from ancient history called a pipa, I saw it in a book my father had, and it stuck in my mind. Then I mentioned it to Beni and she said she could play it, so we're planning to make one, with a few… enhancements."

The two women grinned somewhat evilly and Jaune gulped. Ranma raised an eyebrow with a grin, wondering what his 'sister' would come up with.

 **OOOOOOO**

And so life progressed. Benzaiten continued to work on her weaponfied-pipa, while Ranma enjoyed using his molecular wire. Under their teachings Jaune came far, eventually surpassing the other students in hand to hand skills, and finally starting training with his family blade, Crocea Mors.

When he saw the blade for the first time, Ranma was not impressed. "Jaune, its just a sword, I don't get why it's a big deal. I mean, it's a damn nice sword, decent weight, good edge, no frills, but it's still just a sword."

Jaune laughed. "I used to think so too, but watch this." Jaune moved over to a practice dummy and with a rather half-hearted swing brought his sword down on the dummy's extended arm. The arm fell, shorn clear through. "See? Crocea Mors is made of some old kind of steel no one can make anymore. It's edge never needs sharpening, it's a lot heavier than you think, and it's never broken."

"Okay, I'll admit that's pretty cool. I…" Ranma paused as he saw Amethyst and Beni walking towards the practice range, their bright, rather evil looking grins visible even from the hand to hand weapons testing area. "I think we should go see what my sisters done to that poor instrument."

Jaune looked, and nodded and the two of them moved over to the wall separating the shooting range from where they were, staring.

The two women stopped at the mid-range point, close enough for Ranma to see some details about the pipa in Beni's hand. It was a normal size for the breed, a short neck coming out of a wide, pear shaped body with four long tuners coming out of the neck's head, two to a side. It was painted dark blue all over except for the tuners, which were green.

When Beni lifted the weapon slightly Ranma could see on the bottom of the body several apertures. One looked like a nozzle, while the others Ranma could only guess at.

Benzaiten raised the weapon, first playing a few bars of some sort, the notes easily heard from where the two teens were watching. She proceeded to play a short song, before tapping a bottom of some kind on the neck, pointing the head toward the dummy directly in front of her position.

There was a brief high-pitched whine, and the dummy began to vibrate. A moment later, the wooden dummy suddenly came apart, the vibrations having ripped it to pieces.

At the sight of this the two girls cheered, and Beni threw her arm around Amethyst's shoulders, laughing aloud. In response, Amethyst hugged her back then asked her something neither boy could hear.

In response Benzaiten turned her pipa around, walking forward as she did. When she reached shotgun range she pressed another button, and a flash of lightning arced out from the weapon to skewered another practice dummy, incinerating it.

Jaune gulped, shaking his head. "Okay, Crocea Mors doesn't look all that impressive now."

* * *

 **End Chapter**


	2. Chapter 2

**I don't own Ranma or RWBY.**

 **Yes, this time my teaser chapter ran for more than a prologue and chapter 1. There are reasons for that, which I will discuss at the end of chapter 3.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2 Fall**

"Wait what end of year exams?" Ranma said, astonished. The time had flown by so much, that he hadn't realized he and Benzaiten had been here in the school for nearly a full year now.

"Just like regular vocational schools we have end of year exams Ranma." Jaune answered, taking his surprise as coming from ignorance rather than shock. "I hope you've been studying, our Language Arts professor is a major stickler, half your grade can be decided on the final."

"Erk." Ranma scowled, but did not make any move to correct Jaune's assumption, overcome by the horror of the exams. He shook his head, muttering about how time fly's when you're having fun, before turning to Benzaiten. "Did you know about these exams, Beni?"

Benzaiten smiled demurely putting down her cup of tea and sharing a smile with Amethyst, who was sitting next to her. The Arc girl was easily her best friend here in the school, the only one of the senior's whose maturity came close to her own. "Of course I do, I've been studying for them for a few weeks now. Why do you think I haven't been practicing with Safaia Toboe?" Her smile widened slightly. "And before you ask, no, I won't help you study at the last minute. But if I were you, I'd get to work right away."

"Ugh, my own sister throwing me to the wolves." Ranma gasped, grabbing at his chest dramatically, before springing to his feet, nodding at the other students all around him. They weren't friends really save for Jaune, just acquaintances, but friendly ones at least. "I'll get right on that I suppose. Don't want ta be forced to retake the classes after all, school's boring without that."

But while Ranma wanted to concentrate on the exams and Benzaiten wished to spend as much time with her friend as possible, they found that there were far more demands on their time at this point than they had hoped. The final exams were always a time of high stress, emotional turmoil and even fear for the students of Semaphore, a veritable siren's song to Grimm, who of course responded.

Hunter teams were called in to patrol the area around the plateau while senior students like Amethyst and her friends were assigned work around the plateau's top to keep any flying Grimm away. Of course Semaphore, both the school and the city which shared its name, had automated defenses against such, but it was both good experience and kept the numbers the defenses had to deal with down to a manageable level.

While Benzaiten joined Amethyst on patrol around the plateau's edge, Ranma joined the Hunter teams assigned to head out into the desert to ambush any large group of Grimm spotted heading in the direction of the school. This being Vacuo they were spoiled for choice of course, but even to Ranma there seemed to be a lot more in the area than before.

"So they really do react to negative emotions, weird." He said, casually smashing in a Big Mama's face with a punch before twirling his monomolecular wire around, bisecting several Iguana.

"Yeah, all the Grimm have that in common y'know." The leader of team STRS, or Stars, a young man named Simon Aqua, said. The next instant, his single-bladed battle axe took a medium-sized Death Stalker's stinger off near the body before his teammate Teresa slammed her lance into its stump before sending a grenade deep into its body from the grenade launcher slung under her lance's tip. "I thought it kinda bizarre at first myself when I heard about it, since most of the time their senses are, y'know, normal. But Grimm will congregate from hundreds of miles around if they feel a place becoming too fearful or whatever."

"And of course once they arrive they make it even more." Rikardo Flowers said, laying down a heavy cover fire with his short stub rifle. Unlike the others, Rikardo wasn't very good in close, but his aim even with his stub rifle was damn impressive. "It's a vicious downward spiral, the only way to stop it is hold on until the feelings recede, kill off enough high ranking Grimm to make the others run, or flee."

"I read about Mountain Glenn, Twin Umbra, and Bricktown," Ranma said, frowning heavily. "I just thought that Vale and the others had spread their defenses too thin, but it wasn't that at all, was it?"

"Even history authors don't like to admit that geography does more to defend the kingdoms or major cities than hunters. Oh, there are communities outside the four countries, but most never last. There are just too many Grimm, and if a place starts feeling anxious or fearful, it goes downhill quick. Even cities and towns inside Vacuo and the others have been known to go silent."

Finishing his little history lecture Simon nodded at their fourth team member, a Faunus named Sheera Orchid. She was a silent, hulking behemoth of a bear Faunus, who used two monstrous scimitars, paired with a huge machinegun on her back for distant work. She nodded back having seen the same thing he did and sheathed her scimitars, pulling out her machine gun and laying down fire on the distant packs of Iguana and Hyenas. Smiling at the sight and seeing no more Grimm in the vicinity Simon nodded, pulling out his scroll. "We're done here, lets head back for now."

The last two days of exam week were the worst yet. By horrible bad luck or equally bad planning both the senior combat exam and the freshman History exam took place on the same day, forcing the anxiety of the school to all new heights.

Though not for Ranma, he had history in the bag, because from history he learned tactics, strategy, and, more importantly to him at the moment why Atlas and Vacuo hated one another. Vacuo hated Atlas because they had used an experimental weapon on Vacuo in the Great War, destroying much of the nation's farmland and causing the desert to grow exponentially. Now Vacuo's Council had to spend a lot of its budget to bring in food to feed its people. Farmland was a finite resource in Vacuo, and that made farmers like the Arcs immensely wealthy.

Atlas didn't like Vacuo because in the last war Vacuo suddenly decided to side with Mistral at the last moment, costing Atlas an outright victory in the war. They had managed to broker an alliance with Vale, which gave them the numbers to turn on their old enemy Mistral, but their armies had taken massive losses when they faced the Vacuan forces sent to aid their ally.

To Ranma, both sides were morons. Why humans on this planet would waste time fighting one another when Grimm were always encroaching was not something he wanted to think about. And they were **always** encroaching. If you read the history books and looked at the texts you could see it for yourself if you really thought about it. Yes the big four cities were protected, but not the nation's that took their names from them (for the most part, Atlas the nation used to be called Mantle before a military coup), and every decade or so you could tell that humanity was declining, towns and villages in the so-called protected countries disappearing.

 _Just put that down as one more thing about the Grimm you don't like Ranma_ , he thought to himself as he walked through the door with Benzaiten. _They just are too damn persistent when it comes ta killing humans._ He blinked, staring at where Jaune should've been waiting for them at their regular table. "Where's the kid?"

"You really don't check your scroll, do you?" Benzaiten said, pulling out her own and holding it in front of his face.

She hit play and Ranma listened for a moment. "Hey Ranma, Beni. I'm not going to be in class today, my family and I all went over to Vacuo to celebrate the twin's birthdays."

"Which twins?" Ranma interrupted, causing Benzaiten to laugh quietly.

Jaune went on. "Anyway, all of my sisters and my parents got food poisoning, they all tried something off the seafood platter while I had the pasta. Long story short, I'm staying home to take care of them all. I even got permission to take my exams later because we had to get a doctor flown in and everything." Jaune laughed dryly, while in the background Ranma could make out the noise of someone barfing. "It's been a… smelly… night. And noisy too, can't forget the noises. No matter how hard I try. Hope your days going to be better than mine and we'll meet up this weekend okay?"

With that Jaune hung up, and Ranma looked at Benzaiten. "Well, 99 problems and that one ain't mine."

"You are sometimes a horrible person, you know that yes?" Benzaiten laughed, and the two went to their class. But their day was interrupted around 20 minutes or so into the history test, when klaxons began to sound.

 **OOOOOOO**

No one knew until later what had happened to cause the Grimm in the area to go from numerous but aggressive yet not really up to attacking the mesa in numbers to a full on assault. The surviving students had to work it out, and the seniors decided that the turning point was during the senior combat classes' final exams. These were full on one-on-one combat against their fellow students, and unlike in other countries, Vacuo went until someone was knocked out rather than lost their aura.

It added to the anxiety, and yet because of the added pressure more students learned what their semblances during Vacuo's final exams than in any other nation. But it backfired on Semaphore now. No one was sure who the student was, but an empath had awakened his powers during his match, winning the match and then suddenly being overwhelmed by all the emotions of the people around him, reverberating those emotions back out and acting like a bugle horn calling the Grimm to feed.

 **OOOOOOO**

The Grimm attack was sudden and overwhelming. One moment the vultures were flying well out of range of the defenses, gathering in numbers ranging from six to fifteen. Then the next, they were all of them diving down towards the mesa.

The automated defenses went to high gear as hundreds, thousands of Vultures and Great Vultures, far more than the Hunters had realized were nearby, dove down. The Great Vulture's armored bellies allowed them to close until they could attack, while more vultures landed and began to attack the buildings and people around the edge of the mesa, including the students on patrol.

The principal reacted promptly, signaling the alarm and then getting on the scroll with Vacuo. "Emergency, emergency, Semaphore is under attack, repeat Semaphore is under attack! Mass Grimm assault, mass Grimm assault."

With that done, she turned to the school intercom. "All teachers to arm and join the plateau defenses. All seniors to arm themselves and join the plateau defenses. Freshmen and sophomores are to follow the orders of their emergency proctors and standby."

With that she grabbed up her staff, the fire dust in the ends of it glowing, and raced out of the room. Outside Dorothy met up with her secretary, who was her old teammate and on-again off-again lover. "Once more into the breach," she quipped, hiding her anxiety with the ease of a very long life. "Let's teach these bastards to stay away from my school!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Team STAR had been out on patrol that day, and everything seemed relatively normal. They'd destroyed two large packs of Iguanas, several Scorpios, and even ambushed a few Big Mamas. It was near the end of their watch time when the Grimm attack began.

Ricardo looked through his sniper scope, and gulped audibly. "Guys, over that next dune, there's… I think I just saw a Great Spitter."

The team looked at one another, shocked. "An A-class!? There were no reports of one of them being in the area were there?"

"Reports," Simon scoffed spitting to one side. "When've reports ever been accurate about Grimm movement? You know as well as I do the further you get out into the desert, the less anyone can tell what's there."

Teresa gripped her long lance, opening up the side of it and putting in a new dust cartridge. "What are we going to do?"

Simon looked around at his team and grinned. "Well guys, we've always wondered how we stack up against an A-class, now's the time." They all smirked back at him, hiding their nervousness under bravado. "Could you tell which direction it was going?"

"Towards the school." Ricardo said, tensely. He was trying to find it again, but it disappeared behind one of the dunes. "I can't spot…

That was when everything went to hell. The team turned as Sheera let loose a agonized howl that was utterly unlike her normal quiet nature. They turned to see her flying through the air, propelled by a blow that had ripped off her arm despite her aura protecting her, tossing her body towards the rest of her team.

There stood a giant Grimm vaguely similar in build to a lion, only many times larger and with a much larger upper body build, almost like a lion that had a fullback's built up shoulders and neck. It had armor covering its head and back like a mane, with spikes protruding everywhere along it. A long, serpentine tail ended in a club with more spikes sticking out of it. Its claws were as long as a man's hand and they dug into the sand of the desert as it stalked towards them. Its fangs were huge and dripping saliva, and it's red eyes locked on them with a disconcerting level of intelligence.

Simon gulped, then brought his gun up firing on full automatic as the others did as well. "Teresa, grab Shera and let's get out of here! This is team STAR," He shouted into his walkie-talkie. "Team needs immediate extract! Leo in the area, repeat, Leo!"

And then the Leo was on them, and Simon had no time to realize that no aid would be coming.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma grunted, whirling his mono wire around above his head catching a vulture as it tried to dive bomb at a student who had just dove into the small doorway right next to Ranma. There were more and more of them in the air, but he thought that the battle was beginning to get under control. He didn't see as many Great Vultures anymore, which meant the Hunter teams and the seniors on sniper duty were doing their job.

"Come on you kid," Ranma grabbed the younger student, tossing him towards one of the proctors, who grabbed him and hustled him along with the rest of the students, exiting the school store, which was set to one side of the gymnasium, one of many open areas in the school grounds which had become targets for Vultures looking for places to land.

Ranma fell in step with another proctor, "How much longer do ya think?"

"Helps already arrived, so not long." The man said with a shrug. "Three teams of Hunters from last report, we should be good."

Ranma winced and was about to tell the youth about the folly of such thoughts, when the ground underneath them began to quake. "What the hell? I didn't realize Vacuo was a earthquake prone place?"

"It isn't." the young man said gulping quietly and raising his scroll.

 **OOOOOOO**

Great Spitter acid was powerful stuff, powerful enough in large quantities to melt rock. This happened now, six A-class Great Spitters concentrated on one portion of the mesa, while all around them a Iguana pack thousands strong milled. The acid did its work, burning through and destroying several hundred feet of rock, with the Great Spitters moving their fire around to widen the damage. It took around an hour, but they were able to destroy enough of the rock at the bottom of the mesa to cause the rock above it to start to crack and fall.

There was a deep rumbling sound as this occurred, and afterwards the Grimm had a way up onto the mesa, broken rocks from the avalanche allowing them access to what had previously only been accessible by the flyers. The Iguanas roared as one, racing upwards while the desert behind them heaved. Thousands of Scorpios, Death Stalker's and King Cobras, Vacuo's specialized version of the King Taijutu, appeared there, pushing up out of the sand and roaring forwards.

The older Grimm, the Great Spitters and the largest Death Stalkers waited until their younger brethren had charged forward, then parted as the Leo appeared, it's fangs red with blood and it's claws dripping with ichor up to the elbow. It looked at them, then up at the mesa and roared. As one the larger Grimm charged up after their lesser brethren.

 **OOOOOOO**

Principal Dorothy was a realist. The moment she felt that rumble, she knew what it was, and that Semaphore was lost. Immediately she pulled open her scroll, stepping back and allowing her teammates to take over the defense of the rooftop the two of them were standing on. "This is Semaphore, Semaphore is lost, repeat Semaphore is lost, send transport carriers, repeat Semaphore is lost!" She broke off as she stared aghast at the horde coming up at them over the new entrance to the Caldara. "Send mass transport carriers, or else we're all dead!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma found himself separated from Benzaiten, cutting down several Grimm, little Iguanas led by one Big Mama that had tried to attack one of the townsfolk. His house was crushed in the battle, but Ranma had put down all of them before grabbing up two of the families kids and rushing on with them after the parents, who had already raced off carrying two more. he put them down when he found another proctor at the end of the street, nodding at the youth. "That's the last of them on this street."

"Good, head over to the next street to the left, they're having trouble there."

Ranma nodded and leaped up onto the nearest rooftop making his way across the rooftops before dropping down in the next street over. He came across several Scorpios, several little Iguanas and one giant Death Stalker fighting what looked like two juniors. As he watched the Death Stalker skewered the young girl through the chest, throwing her aside as to of the Iguanas fell on an elderly couple, tearing them apart.

In response Ranma howled and whipped his mono wire forward, slicing the Death Stalker into pieces before landing upon its corpse. He kicked off, and was in among the rest of the Grimm, legs smashing out. Every blow killed a Grimm, but it wasn't enough. The elderly couple was dead, as was the girl.

The other student seemed to be in shock until Ranma slapped his face. "Get a grip man! This is what you decided to train for, now you take those people, and get them moving!" he said staring at a group of civilians who had been hiding in one of the large doorways that was common in here in Semaphore as overhead protection, something that had served them well in the initial Grimm assault.

The student gulped, stared for one more second at the body of his friend then turned resolutely and began to chivvy the civilians away. It was well he had, because just then two King Cobras smashed their way through a house at the far end of the street, coming on quickly seeing as opened their mouths in anticipation of food.

Ranma drew back his mono wire, clicking it in place on his wrist guard and grinned viciously at the oncoming snakes. "You'll find you've bitten off more than you can chew with me you big bastards!" With that he leaped forward, engaging the two up close and personal, while around him the evacuation continued

But that evacuation was having trouble. There were only so many bullheads available, and the nearest place of safety that could accommodate them all was Vacuo itself, three hours flight away. The bullheads could each carry 100 people, but once they took to the air that was it. None of the pilots were really thinking clearly of course, there were smaller closer places, such as Arclight, but Arclight wasn't responding, and the other two small communities nearby were mining communities which simply didn't have the capacity to handle the population of Semaphore even spread between them.

Benzaiten knew this all too well. She and a group of mid-range fighters had gathered together on orders from Dorothy to defend outskirts of the school, and already they were being pressed hard by Grimm. Since the landing pad was part of the school, it was designated the evacuation point in case of emergency. "The more people that come in," she said the "more this place is looking like a smorgasbord to the Grimm!"

Next to her Amethyst's friends, a young man named Bart something or other shrugged his shoulders, lifting his gigantic sniper rifle to his shoulder.

If an American had been there, they would've thought it looked like a Barret, but it wasn't. The rifle fired special dust infused rounds, which upon striking their target caused ice to form over the Grimm in question. A second regular bullet followed a moment later, shattering the frozen Grimm. Bart used this trick now, putting down a large Death Stalker that had just appeared in his line of sight. "Death Stalker down, and what would you have us do? We have to get the civilians out, and this is the only place large bullheads can land!"

Benzaiten growled angrily, not liking the obvious pointed out to her like that and turned twitching a few buttons on her Saifai Toboe, activating the sound assault as she strummed the musical instrument's strings. A loud blast of sonic disruption fired out, slamming into a group of Iguanas and a Big Mama who had just rounded a corner. The Iguanas were shaken apart within seconds while the Big Mama simply slumped, Grimm blood pouring out of its ears as it roared and wailed in agony. Bart's bullets took it in the head through one of its size, ending its suffering.

"Then we do what we can." Benzaiten sighed, shifting her weapon over to solid shot and aiming at a group of Scorpios chasing in a large group of refugees. "Then we do what we can."

 **OOOOOOO**

Jaune sighed stretching his arms above his head and cracking his neck explosively as he leaned away from where he had finally put Tia and Dia his youngest two sisters to bed. They had it worst of all of them, having eaten just as much of the tainted seafood as the others, but being so much smaller it'd wreaked even worse havoc on them. This was the first time in several hours where he wasn't helping one or the other of his sisters were his parents into the bathroom so they could puke out their guts.

He took a moment to simply enjoy the silence, though the smell of puke was still in the air. Then he looked up in alarm as the family's phone went off again. It had been doing that on and off since lunchtime. They normally didn't get that many calls in a day, let alone a few hours. Moving over to it he shook his head. "Oh if this is some sales call I'm going to scream."

It wasn't. He opened the phone, staring as Dorothy shouted into it "emergency, emergency Semaphore is under attack, repeat Semaphore…"

Jaune closed that one quickly and opened up the latest message, hearing about the evacuation, its desperate pleas for Arclight to open its borders so that the bullheads could make fewer trips. Hurriedly he dialed back. "Principal Dorothy?"

"Praise the dust!" the elderly woman's voice gasped at the other end of the line. "Marcus, is that you?"

"T-this is Jaune, principal." Jaune stuttered. "My family's all down with food poisoning, none of us could answer the phone, and all the workers are keeping their distance, the smells, well um, anyway what do you need?"

"Jaune, you need to open up Arclight for emergency bullheads! Can you deactivate your overhead defenses?"

Jaune bit his lip thinking hard then nodded. "I should be able to with some help from my father, and I'll get the foremen and the other workers ready to receive the refugees. Is there anything else we can do?"

"Pray." Dorothy said and cut off the connection.

Jaune swiftly moved to rouse his father, urgently telling him what was needed. Marcus tried to pull himself out of the bed, only to keel over in agony. Stomach issues ran in the family unfortunately, and Marcus was like his son in that he also had very horrible motion sickness. Despite all of them taking Beni's medicine lately, the food poisoning was almost life-threatening to them. Still he was able to give Jaune the codes to power down the automated defenses that protected Arclight from above, which would allow bullheads to fly in unmolested.

With that done Jaune called the two four-minute of the farm together, telling them what was going on and leaving them to organize the people while he raced on, downing an extra-large portion of Beni's stomach medicine. Victor was waiting for him by the family bullhead, nodding at Jaune. "You sure you want to head out with me?"

He didn't even have to ask what Jaune was doing there, strapped into his armor and with Crocea Mors at his side. "I'm a Hunter in training!" Jaune said, ignoring the way his voice squeaked as he said it. "Th-this is what I signed up for. L-let's go."

Victor nodded, strapped himself in and a moment later the Arc family's private bullhead rose into the air and was on its way.

About twelve minutes flight later they came upon the mesa upon which Semaphore and the small city around it sat, and both Victor and Jaune gasped in astonishment at the carnage down below. There were literally thousands of Grimm everywhere fighting all over the giant Mesa, and for a moment Victor worried that the landing pad would be similarly congested.

But it wasn't. Jaune killed two vultures and a Great Vulture with the remote operated machine gun set on top of the bullhead, taking them from above and behind respectively, Victor landed be Arclight bullhead, pushing a button to open the doors. Refugees began to flood in immediately, and Jaune kicked out of the copilot's chair. He leaned back into the cargo hold, shouting "Anyone know how to control a gun get up here!"

An elderly gentleman pushed his way over the seats, taking the copilot's chair from Jaune as Jaune leaped out of the bullhead. He nodded to Victor, who saluted before pulling up on his joystick, the bullhead responding with alacrity. "Jaune!" said a voice, and he turned to see two of his older sister's friends racing towards him along with Benzaiten. "What are you doing here, did Amethyst come with you?"

Jaune explained what happened, while he picked up a heavy machine gun that some student had let drop, wincing at the weight of it but thanks to Ranma's training he was able to lift it up and place it on a bit of rubble to use as a makeshift mount. He fired it, his body shaking with the aftershocks but kept the rounds on target, destroying several Iguanas who had turned raced onto the landing pad chasing a group of civilians. The civilians raced on shouting thanks, and Jaune destroyed a Big Mama that had just appeared behind the Iguanas.

"Jaune?" Benzaiten said slapping him on the shoulder, suddenly appearing there from the same rooftop his sister's friends had come from. "You are not trained…"

"It doesn't take much training to fire a machine gun!" Jaune shouted back. "I might not be a senior, but I am training to be a Hunter!" He turned to look at her, his face serious despite how pale it was. "I, I'll do my part. Trust me."

Benzaiten stared at the young boy, and he was a boy, all of 14 with big ideas, or 15 now she thought, remembering that they'd had a birthday for him about a month back. But right now he was acting like a man, like a warrior, and Beni was suddenly proud to know him. "All right." She nodded over to where several other Hunters in training had appeared, racing through the streets carrying bundles of weapons. "In that case, you're in charge of these kids, get them armed up and protecting the landing pad from anything that gets by Bart and the others."

As Jaune nodded she turned away, racing back towards the position she and Bart had been using as a sniper spot. Leaping up beside him she said, "Bart, you are in charge here until one of the Hunter teams gets back to relieve you. I am going to go out and do short range patrols, remember to look before you fire!"

Bart scoffed at that admonishment, but didn't reply nodding over to Jaune and the rest of the younger teens who were now setting up at the four entrances to the landing pad. Behind them the civilians to at last started to get themselves organized. "That's a good kid."

"Yes he is, I just hope he doesn't get himself killed today." Benzaiten replied tartly, before racing on.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma had remained at the front of the battle, trying to defend the civilians as they retreated from the edge of the mesa where it had collapsed towards the landing pad and the Academy. He'd lost count of how many bodies he'd come across, or how many Grimm he'd killed, because the answer was certainly not enough. Communications were down now, either because the com. tower was down, or because Dorothy was down Ranma didn't know. All he knew was that what organization there had been in the evacuation was slowly eroding, and the Grimm were **everywhere**.

Even so Ranma did what he could, leaping from building to building, killing any Grimm he saw. When he came upon downed hunters or seniors he'd pick up their weapons using them until he ran out of ammo tossing them aside and going back to using his mono wires, his feet, his hands, even his head twice, nearly every trick in the book. Normally Ranma would hold something back, but the analytical side of him, the part Genma had trained through ambushing him pushing him, always forcing his body and his mind to adapt beyond normal human levels, told him that if he did that this time, people would die.

Ranma killed a Big Mama, punching his fists straight through into its brain overcoming the armor covering its head, then turned as the building behind him exploded. Or Ranma thought it was an explosion, but it wasn't. Instead a Hunter had been hurled through the building from the other side to land face up and broken in the streets.

Ranma recognized him as the history professor. "Professor Tesseract!" He shouted, moving over to the man, getting there before a few Iguana's killing them absentmindedly as he knelt by the man. Checking for a pulse Ranma didn't find one and he growled angrily, smashing his fist on the road before he turned the way the professor had come from.

He hadn't noticed because the sound of combat was so pervasive, but the rest of the Professors team was engaging a massive Grimm on the other side of the street from his previous position. He blinked in shock as he stared at it, knowing it could only be of Leo, though one part of his mind was thinking _Oh thank Hachiman, it doesn't look enough like a furry demon from hell to trigger the neko-ken_. It was just as Blue had described to him, a gigantic vaguely lion creature, but with enough differences to keep it from freaking Ranma out.

And it was fast too, and smart. As Ranma watched it smacked a bit of rubble up off the road, blocking a dust round from professor Geomancy, the science professor. In close trying to fight the Grimm were, Aaron and Martin White, the principal's secretary. Aaron was armed with his habitual sword and shield huddled down behind his shield as the Leo slashed at him, his pistols gone somewhere. He held his ground for a moment, while Martin twirled out from behind him, his long glaive twisting in to hack at the Leo's side.

But the Leo jumped backwards then his head darted forward, clamping down and tearing. Martin screamed as his the thing neatly bisected his forearm, ripping off more than half his glaive at the same time.

"No!" shouted Ranma, breaking out of his stasis and charging forward at the same time that Aaron shouted the same thing coming up out of his crouch with a shield bash, catching the Leo underneath the chin before it could pull away. His sword came around in a flash, but it bounced off the Leo's skin, forcing Aaron to turn in a circle with the momentum of his own blow. He brought his shield up again, sideways this time smacking into the Leo's armored nose as it moved to bite him in turn, but couldn't dodge a swipe which caught him in the chest, hurling him aside.

Dorothy appeared, from one end of the street, her normally immaculate appearance gone now, half of her face a mass of scars where someone had healed damage done by a dodged Great Spitter's acid blast of acid before it could kill her. She whirled her staff above her head, and the fire Dust activated, creating a halo of flame around the edge of it which suddenly towards the Leo. "Die beast!"

But the Leo proved it was intelligent again. It didn't try to take the fire on head on, instead it battered its way into a nearby building using it as cover and Dorothy couldn't correct her attack in time. Ranma grabbed Martin, staring down at him as the man shuddered in shock at losing his arm . As Ranma held the man breathed his last, and Ranma stared down at him, aghast. He laid the man down, closing his eyes gently before turning to Aaron.

Just then however the Leo leaped out from its hiding place, Dorothy's dust assault having ended, causing Ranma to turn. Before that thing could reach for her, Ranma leaped on it from behind, dodging its flailing tail midair before pummeling its back with Amiguriken speed fists.

The Leo's skin was decent armor, well above normal Grimm's actual armor. It could stop Ranma's blows from doing much damage, but not no damage, and Ranma felt something inside the beast's skin give way. The Leo howled, twisting quickly and throwing him off with an ease that was astonishing, turning quickly to catch Ranma midair with a slash from one paw.

But Ranma grabbed onto its claws, just as it connected wincing at the pain of it before flipping himself over the Leo's paw and kicking out hard catching it on the nose. The nose was well armored, and the Leo tipped its head up, flipping Ranma backwards through the air. It lunged for him with open jaws and Ranma could only grab its jaws and hold it open before they clamped down on him. For a moment they stood there, the Leo trying to close its Jaws and Ranma, using all his strength to hold them open.

Dorothy mumbled another command activating her Semblance. Pointing she sent the last of her fire dust forward in an explosion of fiery power that caught the Leo in the rear. The Leo turned with a howl, throwing Ranma through the air to impact one of the nearby buildings, were he slid to the ground for a second before leaping up, his face a rictus of fury. "Oh no you don't!

The Leo made to go after Dorothy again, but Ranma slammed bodily into its side, pummeling its underbelly with Amiguriken speed. He once more felt something give inside the creature, then was forced to dodge one of its back limbs as it clawed at him.

Rolling away Ranma came to a stop then rolled away again as the Leo leaped at him with unnatural speed, dodging several sniper blasts at the same time. _These things really are_ _ **fast**_ _! No wonder most Hunters have a problem with them._ Grimm weren't supposed to be able to dodge like that, nor were they supposed to be able to think of blocking sniper shots like this one had done. It also seemed to know which rounds were dust infused and which weren't. It would ignore the normal rounds, while either dodging or blocking with rubble the dust rounds that professor Geomancy was firing at it as it and Ranma danced around one another, blocking, attacking, looking for a chance to go in for the kill.

"Get out of here professor Geo!" Ranma shouted, "Get the principal and get back to the landing pad! You'll do more good there!"

"You can't think to take that thing on alone kid!" the teacher shouted back, loading his last special dust round, an air type which would act like lightning in a bottle.

Just then however Ranma had been turned completely around by the Leo on the road, who suddenly turned from Ranma and ducking professor Geomancy's round leaped towards him unhindered. Ranma howled in fury raising his hands and shouting "Moko Takabasha!"

The ki blast shot out, slamming into Leo's tail and incinerating it right below where it met main body. It yowled with pain, but even so it's hand lashed out, catching professor Geomancy where he had been crouched on the roof and hurling him backwards, the professor unable to retreat fast enough thanks to the length of the sniper rifle he used. Typically he would've had his teammates there to protect him it in close range, but two of them were down already.

Ranma had no time to wonder if the professor was still alive as the Leo turned on him, snarling in fury and attacking relentlessly now, it's front legs a blur almost matching the speed of the Amiguriken technique. Ranma dodged what he could block and took what he couldn't, wincing as the claws of on the thing opened his forearms up despite his bodies durability, never getting hit with a full powered swipe, just the edges of them was painful enough, and he always used their momentum to change his movements randomly, keeping up with the beast with difficulty, not using his mono wire for the moment since he figured the Leo would just dodge it. _If it gets a full hit on me, I'm dead, not even my durability can stand up to that. And it's too fast and too wily for my mono wire to… wait a minute…_

Thinking quickly, Ranma redirected a blow to the left twisting around that limb forcing the Leo to reach over that limb with it's other one to try to smack him aside. It opted not to of course, leaning down quickly with its fangs bared to try and bite him instead. This was just what Ranma had hoped for.

Bringing his hands together right in front of the things face quicker than even a Amiguriken move he shot out a Moko Takabasha. Even so the Leo was **fast** , pulling it's head to one side and letting the ki blast pass it by harmlessly. But that opened it up for Ranma's next assault, because it couldn't dodge the spinning disc that fired out of Ranma's vambrace the mono wire quickly twisting around the things neck at a few twitches from his arm.

Ranma pulled, and then stared astonished. The armor of the Leo's mane resisted the mono wire, something that Ranma would've thought impossible. But then the Leo reared back, putting all of its energy into getting away from the noose like an animal would. Ranma felt himself lifted up, then flying through the air still connected thanks to the forearm launcher.

But at the same time the wire was cutting into the things neck, Ranma could tell that the wire of it under its neck at least was beginning to tear into the beast's hide now. The Leo roared again, trying to retreat now but Ranma used his midair maneuverability to grab onto first a lamppost, then the side of a building, latching himself hard by punching his arms into the building's side.

Even so the Leo was strong enough to rip him and portions of the building he was holding out entirely dragging them along until Ranma could get his feet under him again. Leaving grooves in the concrete as the Leo tried to get away again Ranma was at last able to put enough pressure on the noose around the Leo's neck to cut into its jugular. The Leo screamed again, clawing at its neck but unable to get the wire out of its neck, its blood pouring out around the small but deepening cut.

It still took a while, and it still dragged Ranma down the street nearly getting him killed by several other Grimm, but there were other Hunters in the area, and they, seeing what was going on covered him quickly. Eventually the Leo succumbed, slumping down. Ranma wearily made his way over to its body, unlatching the wire from its noose around the things neck, reeling it in with a touch of his palm. Then he made his way back through the streets, killing a few Grimm along his way but no longer looking for them just yet, he needed to check on the teachers.

Principal Dorothy and professor Geomancy stood over Aaron's body. Around them several dozen more Grimm lay, their bodies slowly dissipating as Ranma came upon them. "Is he?"

Geomancy shook his head, pushing up from where he had been kneeling by his friend. "He wants to say something to you." Ranma blinked at that, but nodded and knelt down by the man. Aaron weekly held up the arm containing his shield.

It was a simple round shield of the size gladiators or Spartans would've used. Despite the pounding it had just taken, it's circular smooth edge wasn't dented at all, and it almost seemed to gleam slightly. "Take it," Aaron gasped.

"What?" Ranma asked, incredulously. "Why, shouldn't it go to your teammate, I mean, why me?"

"All dead, Leo killed them, you killed it. Besides… you said to me once, you were… a martial artist." The man gasped. "You said… a martial artists duty… The code... **defend** those… who can't defend themselves. Makes you… a truer Hunter… than most. Most join… for glory, for action… for or because they hate the Grimm. You want to be a Hunter to defend others. Take it…" he said leaning back and his arms falling before Ranma could remove the shield. "And… remember … what a shield is for..."

Ranma looked down at the man, then reached forward and closed his eyes gently looking up at professor Geomancy. Geomancy, who like Martin and Dorothy hadn't been part of Aaron's team but his friend, simply nodded. Slowly Ranma slipped the shield off the man's arm putting it on his own. It felt heavy, heavier than it should've been really especially to Ranma, and he wondered if the shield was made from the same stuff that Crocea Mors and its sheathe/shield were. It certainly looked ancient enough.

"Feels like a promise doesn't it?" Dorothy asked, slapping him on the shoulder, her normal cool professionalism gone in the heat of the battle.

"What?" Ranma asked, bemused. "What do you mean?"

"You'll find out I suppose." Dorothy said. "Let's get a move on, this battle's not over yet." It did get easier from then on, the individual Grimm were no longer as coordinated as they had been, and every type acted true to form now. Yet the humans could not fight their numbers, could not turn back the tide.

 **OOOOOOO**

Jaune fumbled at his side for another ammo canister, then jumped aside as a Scorpio slammed into his previous position. It's pincers twisted the machine gun into a mangled wreck, it's stinger seeking his chest. Jaune flung up his shield, deflecting it to one side, then his body moved automatically, Crocea Mors coming around in a short, economical swing that carved into the Scorpio's armored maw. The minor Grimm's armor was no match for the ancient blade and it expired.

But there were several others behind it, and for a moment it was all Jaune could do to survive, blocking, stabbing at times kicking out, though not often. Moments later the last one died, it's stinger gone, Crocea Mors thrust hard down into it's body.

For a moment, Jaune stared down at the Grimm's body, then around at the others he had just killed. Him, not the machine gun, but him, Jaune Arc, the weakest Arc, the one his older sisters were always worried about, who his parents had tried to convince wasn't Hunter material.

"You okay Jaune?" asked a nearby student, while another was setting up another machine gun, pushing aside the wreckage of the one Jaune had been using.

Jaune idly noted that the student was one of those freshman who had looked down on him not too long ago. Before the youth's voice might have been tinged with resentment, many of the freshman resenting the fact Jaune was getting training from Ranma and Beni. Now however, there was only respect in his tone.

Locking Crocea into it's shield-sheath Jaune nodded, coming out of his stupor with a faint, somewhat bemused smile on his face. "Yeah, I'm fine. Come on, there's still a battle going on."

 **OOOOOOO**

The evacuation continued throughout the day well into the night and into the next day, where thankfully the rest of the adults from the Arc family currently at Arclight joined in, relieving the beleaguered Hunters as the evacuation continued. But the Grimm were pressing hard, and casualties mounted tremendously at night, three more Hunter teams going missing presumed dead along with hundreds of civilians. But more bullheads had shown up from Vacuo, including a few dozen heavy lifters. This finally gave the defenders enough lift capacity to really begin to move civilians out, and they did so with alacrity.

By the time dawn broke, only a few thousand remaining civilians were on sight, and they were being evacuated out quickly. The Hunters had paid for this though, and were being pressed back hard. Worse, Ranma and the others knew they were leaving civilians behind, trapped under rubble, in shelters, or simply hiding. And there was no way to get to them now, most of the mesa now belonged to the Grimm.

Ranma was on the front lines the entire time, seemingly tireless, using his ki and endurance to stay awake and mobile, attacking any Grimm he saw and responding to pleas for help as he heard them. With communications down it was very tough going, and there was only so much he could do. As good as he was Ranma was only one man and could only cover so much area.

He got used to using a shield during the battle, using it at first to defend, and then to attack, taking some inspiration from old Captain America comic books he had read, flinging the shield off his arm to smash into Grimm before using the ricochet catching it and twirl his body through the air to another position.

Hiding in an abandoned house for a moment, Ranma grabbed some water from the kitchen, guzzling it down and leaning against the wall resting as he could. "What a fucked up day." He laughed, shaking his head, but there was no humor in the sound. "Funny thing is, without all the deaths and the need to protect the civilians and other hunters, this'd be almost fun."

Just then his scroll went off and he pulled it out of his pockets, looking at it strangely. "All Hunters retreat back to the landing pad. All Hunters retreat back to landing pad, we're about four more loads from finishing up here, then it's our turn."

Ranma nodded with relief, then put his scroll away and raced out of the room absentmindedly killing an Iguana that had been lurking by the door before taking to the rooftops, using a rifle he'd picked up to kill two Vultures and several Scorpios.

About five minutes of roof hopping took him halfway from his former position to the landing pad, where he found Hunters and several students retreating back to the school, using fire and maneuver as they went. One of them was Benzaiten, who was being carried between two others.

"What happened to her?" Ranma said, dropping down off the routes to learn nearby. His shield slung up, blocking a Great Spitter's acid, and he whirled, flinging his shield back towards the Spitter the shield's side taking it across the eyes before bouncing straight back to Ranma. _I've gotten really good at this whole bouncing calculation thing._ As the Grimm twisted away several Hunters opened fire on it, and one fire dust round caught it in the mouth where it exploded upon the Great Spitter's next acid attack.

Catching the shield as it bounced back his direction, Ranma looked at the two students carrying Benzaiten who were looking at him in awe. Looking closer however Ranma could see bloody patches on Benzaiten's clothing. "She took out a big group of Death Stalkers and King Cobras somehow, but then collapsed. Before we could get to her a Big Mama nearly bit her in half, in fact it should have, we don't know why it didn't. Aura's supposed to protect you, but not that much!"

Ranma nodded, understanding that it was their natural durability plus her aura that allowed her to survive that, though he wondered how a Big Mama, not exactly known for their sneakiness, could get that close to her. "Get her out of here on the next Bullhead, hopefully to Arclight." Ranma ordered.

The teens nodded, and Ranma moved off, guarding their back as they retreated. When they reached the school grounds he handed their protection over to another group of hunters, then went back out and did the same thing again. Several hours passed, with Ranma protecting the last of the refugees as they retreated to the Bullhead's, where he met up with the last of the teachers.

Dorothy and Geomancy were the only ones left alive from the entire staff of the school. Of the Hunter teams that had been brought in, a scattering ten people remained, cobbled together from the broken remains of teams.

"What's the holdup?" Dorothy shouted into her microphone her voice audible over the ongoing battle and the deep thrum of dozens of heavy machine guns from the bullheads on the ground and in the sky, keeping the sky clear. From her position by the largest entrance into the landing pad, between the cafeteria building and the heavy outer wall of the school, she nodded over to Ranma, who slid into a position right beside her. "Get those last bullheads off the ground!"

"We can't." Ranma heard from her scroll, throwing down the machine gun he'd recently been using to pick up a sword someone else had dropped. "There are too many vultures in the air we need to wait until…"

The man cut off abruptly as the heavy lifters, barely visible high above the mesa, abruptly began to move off, heading away. "Dammit! Lifters've just left, they're full up! Their captains say their air circulators can't take any more."

"Is Arclight still accepting refugees?" Dorothy asked quickly, spinning her staff to crush the head of an Iguana as it went to chomp on her leg. Then she twirled around, bringing it up and around to slam into another Iguana's chest sending it rocketing away.

"Yes! You want us to go there? We won't be able to take as many people per trip, and even if it's close, you're going to have to hold out longer."

"Do it." Dorothy said, her face set into unyielding lines. "We'll hold as long as we can. Every fucking civilian leaves, or none of us do."

Exhausted, beleaguered, and now the sole remaining large target, the hunters dug in, while Ranma leaped up onto the cafeteria's roof, surveying the area. The school grounds were now crawling with Grimm of all sorts, and Ranma knew they were all heading this way. Oh, there were of course survivors out there somewhere. hiding or otherwise trying to escape the Grimm, but even so the landing pad was now number one in Grimm magnets.

Ranma held the line, doing what he could, but he couldn't take the pressure off the others entirely despite how good he was. He never noticed that he had begun to glow blue, the ki of his body answering his call. He never saw the looks of awe in his fellow warrior's faces. All he cared about was defending the civilians and killing Grimm. Every punch, every kick killed, and Ranma moved on, constantly dodging, kicking, destroying, his personality now subsumed by pure instincts.

Dorothy went down, a Great Spitter's acid having hit her weapon, making her easy meat for a Big Mama. Professor Geomancy went down howling his rage standing over her body and firing two rifles on full auto from underneath his arms, slaying Grimm with every round until a Great Spitter, the same who had claimed Dorothy's weapon got him in the face with a full spray of acid.

Ranma's shield caught the Great Spitter behind the head severing its spine. Then Ranma raced up its decomposing body with a machine gun, gunning down a whole street full of Scorpios before turning to aid another hunter, his shield turning a Death Stalker's stinger away from him.

Others went down, other students, other Hunters, but Ranma remained, killing, killing, killing every below a deathblow, every move calculated. He lost his mono wire, the container hit by acid. Ranma hurled it off killing an Iguana with the throw, the acid splattering and killing another Scorpio.

He lost the sword he'd picked up. It shattered in a Death Stalker's grip. Ranma used the slivers to kill the Death stalker, throwing them so fast they penetrated the thing's body armor.

He lost every gun he picked up in turn, using them as guns, then blunt weapons until they shattered.

Only his shield remained on his person, too precious now to use as a long-range weapon, blocking acid as came at him as he retreated with the last of the refugees, several students and one final Hunter, guarding their back until they were on the Bullhead.

Then they were in the air, and Ranma was staring at the carnage down below, at the sheer number of seething Grimm covering the mesa from one end to the other. Ranma stared, until his exhaustion, his ki reserves gone long ago, hit him as the last of his adrenaline left his body. He fell forward to be grabbed by the people whose lives he had just saved, pulled back into the bullhead as they turned for the west, the remains of their homes burning and broken behind them.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma woke up several days later on a warm and very comfortable bed. Turning his head he knew saw Lavender and Marcus Arc smiling down at. "How are you feeling Hunter?" Marcus said reaching down and patting him on the shoulder.

"H-how long?" Ranma croaked.

"A few days. Frankly you recovered a hell of a lot faster than we expected you to, we didn't think you'd wake up for two weeks!"

Lavender smacked her husband shoulder glaring down at Ranma. "Do you know how close you were to death?! You used up your aura, and somehow began to use up your own life essence from what the doctors said, and that's not even counting your injuries! But the moment we hooked you up to an IV tube and force fed you, your aura went to work healing you faster than even the best healer could've done. I've never heard of any case like it!"

"It was worth it." Ranma said, then he sighed, trying to sit up. "How many of us escaped?"

The two adult arcs were silent, staring at one another. As they did Ranma shook his head once again at the strange dichotomy of the two of them. Marcus was a giant bull of a man, almost as wide across the shoulders as he was tall, whereas a Lavender was a skinny, almost anorexic figure, which belied the strength in the woman.

And she was strong, she could out arm wrestle everyone but her husband on the estate apparently, and had even made Ranma work for it the one time he tried his luck. Marcus reminded Ranma somewhat of Ryoga, in his strength and durability, both of which were semblance assisted, he had the semblance of Rock Armor, making his body hard and durable as rock. Lavender's strength was semblance based as well, but it was much more surprising in her case. Lavender had dark green hair, while Marcus had his family's blond hair and the family eyes as well.

After a moment Lavender answered, placing her palm on Ranma's forehead and pressing him back down into the covers. "Not, not many. None of the teachers or school staff got out alive, they all went down doing their duty. We think Amethyst and her friends Bart, Gregory and Helen are the only surviving seniors, but most of the sophomores got out apparently."

"The freshman?" Ranma asked.

"Jaune and his class are a mixed bag. Jaune's still with us of course, despite rushing out to fight like that!" Marcus shook his head angrily. The arcs had a tradition of not waking there aura's up until the 16th birthday, which was another year away from Jaune, and Jaune should never have been anywhere near a fight of that magnitude, but once he was, he kept on coming back, even sneaking aboard the family Bullhead head back to the battlefield whatever his parents ordered.

Marcus wasn't happy with it and neither was Lavender. Frankly, they had too many children already in harm's way to want even one more joining it, and while Jaune was technically the family's heir, that was no reason to let him in throw away his life. Both parents had secretly determined to try and convinced Jaune to give up this whole hunting idea, hoping he would listen to them. Amethyst had agreed to do so, traumatized by the battle. But her older sisters were Hunters already out there in the field, and Lavender and Marcus couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to any of them.

"Vacuo was able to do a census and find that most of the citizens survived." Lavender said, trying to be upbeat about it. "All of your sacrifices weren't in vain."

Ranma leaned back, fighting back tears. Tears weren't manly after all, whatever the reason for them. "But we didn't do enough."

"You can't save everyone." Marcus said laying one large hand on Ranma shoulder. "Sometimes it's all you can do just to hang on. In this world, that's the best anyone can hope for. A lot of Hunters die never realizing that."

"It's not enough." Ranma growled, smacking the man's hand away before he subsided. "Sorry about that, but we should've done more."

"The Folly of youth is saying that." said Benzaiten's voice from the doorway. "What could we have done? You gave your all, I gave my all, all of the teachers gave their all! **Don't** denigrate their sacrifice by saying it wasn't enough! Your best has to be enough, that's **why** it's your best!"

Ranma stared at her, then chuckled quietly. "When did you get so mature?"

"I've always been mature." Benzaiten quick quipped back, smiling politely at them. "Big sisters have to be."

"Wait what? Since when did we decide you were the older one?"

"I would think it was obvious." Benzaiten lifted her nose up haughtily. "I'm certainly more mature than you are."

Lavender and Marcus quickly left the room leaving the two siblings to harangue one another, getting over there grief as best they could. It would come back later, especially to Ranma, but he would get over it eventually. The human mind, especially those of teenagers, was a remarkably resilient thing.

 **OOOOOO**

Arclight wasn't a farm, as Jaune had put it that first time they talked about it. It was a large plantation built into a small caldera over a natural spring. The only reason why the place hadn't been made into city was because it was so small, barely ninety acres across.

Most of that land was given over to farming, with several small houses dotting the landscape, where workers lived year-round. There were more people out there than normal. The evacuation refugees that had been transported to Arclight were still being ferried back to Vacuo. The sheer number of Vultures and Great Vultures still in the area made that dangerous and slow work.

The Arc house was the largest house in sight of course, a sprawling one-story building with several dozen rooms spread out here and there but no second floor except for one tower, which rose to five stories. It was the center for the automated defense grid, which protected Arclight from airborne threats, the only sort that could get at them given the solid concrete and reinforced steel surrounding the estate.

The entire family lived there, two uncles and their families, several nieces and nephews, and of course Jaune's own parents and their kids. Benzaiten approved of all of it, saying it showed a grasp of foresight and planning, from the irrigation system leading from the underwater spring to the defenses, to even the metal and concrete walls that backed up the rock of the caldera around the property. That, according to Jaune, had actually been more expensive than anything but the automated defenses, but the Arcs were moderately wealthy thanks to being major exporters for foodstuffs and having brought a lot of stake money when they moved here from Vale generations ago. Vacuo did not have much arable land, and little places like this made their owner's **lot** s of money in Vacuo, and also won them a lot of goodwill too. The Arcs for example didn't charge even half the price Vale did for the equivalent amount of produce.

Ranma however had no eyes for any of this right now. He sat on the veranda of the Arc's house, staring down at the shield in his hands rather than out at the vista around him. Next to him Benzaiten sat, gnawing at her lower lip. Ranma caught this out of the corner of his eye but was unprepared when Benzaiten blurted out. "I, I awakened my semblance."

Ranma gaped at her, coming out of his own thoughts abruptly. "Wait, you really do have a semblance? How is that even, I thought, are you sure?"

"I know it doesn't make sense given our… unique situation." Benzaiten said, not wanting to speak aloud that they had come from another world. After all, people were locked up for a lot less than that. "But I do. You won't be astonished to discover that it is music related."

"What is it?"

Benzaiten shook her head. "I don't know, I collapsed right after I used it. Apparently it's something like matter creation, though I can't remember how I did it or anything else, and none of the people who witnessed it made it out alive. I need to find someone who can train me in it, someone with a similar semblance. Marcus says he knows a teacher over in Vale who can help me."

Nodding Ranma went back to staring at his shield. For some reason despite all the horrible things he had seen during the fall of Semaphore, Aaron's death and his words still weighed on him. "What is the meaning of the shield?"

Cocking her head quizzically Benzaiten was about to ask Ranma what he meant, but Lavender spoke up from behind the two of them causing them to turn. "What is a gun, but a coward's way of fighting? What is a spear, but a tool used first for hunting? What is a sword but a weapon for killing?"

Her voice moved into a sort of chant as she went on, staring down at Ranma. "What is a shield? A defense to protect what is precious. With your shield, your strength and your will protect thee and thine, a wall against the encroaching darkness. Through this shield we achieve immortality and guard those that come after, freeing them from fear and setting them free."

Smiling, Lavender looked down at Ranma. "It's called the oath of the shield, a very old aura activation chant. It's probably been changed from the original Mistralian a time or tow, but the intent is clear enough."

Ranma took in her words silently then looked down at her shield. "I don't know if I'm worthy of this."

Reaching forward Lavender touched his shoulder gently. "Given your actions in that battle, killing the Leo and staying until the last to defend the civilians and the other students I don't think anyone else could be anywhere near as worthy. Keep it Ranma, and always remembered that a shield is made to defend others. Keep to your Code and I don't think you'll ever go wrong."

Ranma nodded, still staring at this shield not noticing that the two women left him there for a time.

Later that night Ranma stared at his reflection in the mirror, frowning thoughtfully. _A few more scars for the collection, heh, funny though, that Leo was the toughest Grimm out there, but my ki healed all the injuries I took from it without leavin' a single scar behind. Whereas… I think that one there was left by an Iguana, and that other one, a Scorpio maybe? Though there is the acid scar on my arm._

Ranma's reflection showed the normal image, an extremely well built and muscled young man, his muscles and body type that of a gymnast rather than a body builder, belying his massive strength. He hadn't been without scars before this, small things for the most part, many on the backs of his arms and back from the neko-ken training. Now however, several larger scars had been added to the collection.

One ran along the side of his body, a shallow but long thing. Another was a large bite mark on one thigh, every one of the teeth that had clamped down on his thigh. On his dominant forearm was the worst of the trio, an ugly burn mark directly below where the forearm sheath for his monomolecular wire had been. The Great Spitter's acid had burned through there for a brief moment before Ranma unlatched the thing and tossed it at that Iguana.

He sighed, turning away to stare at the shield where it lay in one corner, it's face nearly pristine despite the abuse it had faced, even the acid from a Great Spitter hadn't down much to damage it. Staring at the shield, his face firmed. _They say the greatest defense is a good offense Aaron. I'm gonna prove worth yer trust in me, but I'm gonna do it my way._

The next few days passed quickly, with Ranma and Benzaiten taking turns training Jaune, while the last of the refugees were ferried out. Ranma also took this time to fill several hundred water bottles and stuff them into his ki space. He had a plan, and this plan was built around one basic tenant: Knowledge is power. Ranma didn't know enough about the Grimm and none of the books he had found could tell him more. He wanted to know where they came from, how they were born or whatever, and how they acted when humans weren't around. Anything that could give him an edge.

Benzaiten on the other hand was in contact with the teacher Marcus recommended, Glynda Goodwitch, Vice Principal of Beacon Academy, one of the schools that served as colleges for Hunters. She agreed to meet with Benzaiten and test her on her semblance, and even went so far as offering both Benzaiten and Ranma, on Marcus's recommendation, early placement in Beacon.

Benzaiten refused, unwilling to become just another student again. While her body was still that of a 17-year-old girl, if rather buxom, her mind was that of a 28-year-old girl. She had no wish to take classes with those so much younger than her mentally, and no need to since she could now read the local language for herself.

More and more of her memories from her past life had come back to her over the last nine months, and it had been interesting integrating them with those from her time with Ranma. But it was those memories which were dominant, after all Ranma had only had his curse for a little over a year and a half, while Benzaiten had an entire life before that incident with her best friend. She was willing to become an apprentice, but not a student.

In her reply to this Glynda simply said "We'll see."

Ranma however refused outright. He had his own little mission, and no desire to be a student ever again. The day after Glynda's reply Benzaiten was flown to Vacuo, where she would catch a flight to Vale. She and Ranma spent a few moments talking then hugged one another and parted without another word, promising to stay in touch. Moments after the bullhead lifted off Ranma turned away, and went back into the house making his final preparations for his own self-appointed task.

That evening Ranma set off, with Victor and Marcus dropping him off in the nearby mountains. Like the ones Ranma and Benzaiten had appeared on these were rocky, but unlike the ones in the far north, these actually had some life on them. Forming the main defense from Grimm further to the south for both Vacuo and Vale, they were a mix of forest and rocky, much like places in China except with very different trees. Despite this however, they were simply too infested by Grimm to allow any human habitation, even here in Vacuo.

"Are you sure about this kid?" Marcus asked. "Other people have tried to observe Grimm in their natural state, none have ever returned."

Marcus and Lavender hadn't felt it was their place to dissuade Ranma from this mad idea beyond trying to talk him out of it like this. Both of them had heard the details of how he'd fought, and knew he was already better than 90% of the Hunters out there, and how a man dealt with his grief was his own business.

Besides, Ranma had a few tricks up his sleeve, quite literally, that no other Hunter had. "I'm sure." Ranma said with a faint smile. "Trust me, I'll be fine. I'll see you around sometime Marcus, and say hi to Jaune for me."

Marcus nodded, clasped the younger man's forearm with his own, and a moment later the bullhead was roaring back up into the sky. Ranma ran off immediately, putting as much distance as possible between him and the landing place, moving silently through the trees and the brush until he found a tree with a small hiding place high up it's trunk between two huge branches.

There he hid waiting for several hours to go by and for the natural rhythm of the forest to return in the sound of birds and other animals. Then he moved off, using every trick he could to keep his presence as small as possible, smiling all the while at the enjoyment of it. He loved being out here like this, and he loved the challenge too. _Okay little Grimmies, let's see what I can figure out about your asses, when you're not trying to bite_ _ **mine**_ _off anyway._

The Grimm used eyesight, hearing, smell, and whatever reverse empathy they did to be attracted to darker emotions to hunt humans. Because Ranma wasn't feeling any of those dark emotions at the moment, they had to rely on their other senses to find him. And in a forest like this, Ranma was right at home, the next best thing to invisible.

The next several months were not without incident of course, at times Ranma was spotted, at others he saw one type of Grimm or other that forced a flashback on him from the battle in Semaphore. But Ranma didn't use guns or even his shield or anything else to kill the Grimm that spotted him like so many Hunters would have been forced to do. No, he used his hands, and did it as quickly and quietly as possible.

Because of this, he came away with several interesting notes about Grimm, which he wrote down in a notebook. The first thing he learned was that the Grimm didn't need to eat very often at all. They needed to sleep, the amount differing from one type to another, but they didn't need to eat more than once a week regardless of type. They didn't attack animals except to eat, and only the Iguanas and the type called beowolves seemed to find prey by scent.

That scent could be confused relatively easily. Ranma learned this, by using bear piss, rolling in the ground where a bear had pissed to cover his scent. It was disgusting, but it worked. The other type of Grimm did not use scent, but their hearing and eyesight were **much** better than you would expect.

The next point he found out for certain was the Grimm couldn't use their anti-empathy or whatever to home in on if he remained upbeat and happy. Controlling his emotions like that at night when he had nightmares of the battle was very hard, but Ranma was not one to let grief get him down, and as weeks turned into months began to get over his nightmares.

And in the wild, the Grimm types had nothing to do with one another, and would, at times fight one another. It was almost like a hierarchy thing, the Grimm in any particular area would follow the strongest Grimm inside that area regardless of that Grimm's type. If that position at the top was in question, the Grimm fought it out, and often times the older, more powerful Grimm would kill one another.

So Ranma made his way through the mountains, spending weeks following different packs of Grimm around, noting how even the largest kinds of Grimm could move through the forest remarkably well. Only the Big Mamas seemed to be unable to knock trees down when they moved.

The most important thing he kept looking for but did not find was any sign the Grimm reproduced like normal animals. Never did he see any visibly young Iguanas or Beowolves or anything that could be seen as young among them, and there certainly didn't seem to be genders among the Grimm. It was like they were born fully grown, and age only added strength and other things to them. Where the hell the Grimm came from was the biggest reason Ranma had come out here, and he was drawing a big old blank.

In his seventh month exploring, Ranma came upon surprise: signs of someone else's footsteps on a muddy ground by a tiny pond, caused by the rain the area had been hammered with the past three days. They led off in one direction before stopping after a few feet, and Ranma frowned thoughtfully. _Is someone else out here?_

Looking around, he noticed several bushes nearby that looked like strawberry bushes. They all had been carefully plucked clean, and moving on through the treetops Ranma found more signs of someone living in the area, an orange tree that was very well cared for, and what looked like crap from a sheep along with signs of where they had been sheared recently.

Moving on however, he noticed other signs and frowned angrily. "Whoever's out here got spotted. It must've been the rain, the ground's so damn muddy you can't help but leave marks." So saying Ranma jumped up, flipping himself back up into the trees and away over the branches so quickly even a monkey would've been green with envy.

A few moments later he heard the sound of Grimm attacking something, roaring and snapping and soon after that he came upon the fight itself. Standing in front of a small thin crack in a piece of sheer mountainside was an old woman. She was at least 70, possibly older though she still seemed rather hearty. She wore dark brown and green, except for her gloves and hat, which were sky-blue. In her hand she held a shepherd's crook, which she was using adroitly as a staff to fend off a pack of Beowolves.

Wondering what old woman was doing out here, Ranma ran forward, leaping down upon the Beowolves from behind. He landed on the alpha Beowolf, his fingers digging in under the armor bone behind its neck where there wasn't any on armor so that the thing could turn its neck from side to side, grabbing the armor where it flared out over the skin, wrenching it around. There was a sickening crunch, and the rest of the Beowolves turned as the alpha fell its spine snap. Letting the thing fall Ranma smirked evilly at the other Beowolves. "Next?"

Seconds later it was all over, the two humans having made short work of the pack, letting none alive and doing so relatively silently, so no other Grimm came to investigate. Standing over the last Beowolf Ranma stared at the old woman, head cocked to one side. "You know, I thought I was saving you, but I'm not certain I was. You seem to've dealt with this easily enough."

The old woman shrugged, her voice when she spoke scratchy from disuse, her craggy and wrinkled brow furrowed. "It is sometimes the thought that counts I suppose. But what are you doing out here young man? There shouldn't be anyone around here, that would be why I am out here." she said, in a sort of 'hint, hint' tone of voice.

Ranma shrugged. "I came out here to study the Grimm. I was a student at Semaphore, but well, the school fell and I, and I decided we didn't know enough about Grimm, about where they came from, what they did when there were no humans to attack. I wanted to find out so here I am. My names Ranma What's yours, and why're **you** out here?"

For a moment the old woman stared at him, getting into his face slightly and turning Ranma's face this way and that. Though her eyes, which Ranma noticed were so blue that they put his own to shame, remained locked on his own.

They searched his face and his soul for something, then she nodded. "I believe you. I'd not heard of the fall of Semaphore, but that isn't exactly a surprise. But that is a dangerous project you've assigned herself. No one really studies the Grimm other than how to kill them. People are too busy surviving today to worry about tomorrow, or simply too busy with their own human endeavors." She spat the words. Such as wasteful wars or conflict, all of it so… **stupid**."

"I believe that." Ranma said with a nod. "I honestly have no idea why any nation on this planet would go to war with any other, with the Grimm so prevalent."

"A better attitude than most." the older woman replied, nodding as she turned away to pick up a large basket filled with bits of wool and strawberries. "I could wish it was more common."

"You didn't tell me your name." Ranma said. "Or why you're out here yourself. Is it just because ya wanted to get away from other humans?"

The woman turned back again staring into Ranma's eyes. Ranma once again got the impression that she could see a lot more of his personality and soul than he was happy with, but he remained silent, staring back at her. "I am Spring young man. Come, you might not have needed to step in, but you did, and that deserves a hot meal at least."

Ranma nodded with a shrug, thinking some company might be nice for a bit and followed the woman into her cave, which turned out to be quite well apportioned and laid out. It even had a tiny Dust generator sitting in one corner powering several mechanical devices: a refrigerator, a heater, and a stove. Along both walls and the back were several alcoves cut out of the rock at head height, though what tool had done the carving Ranma couldn't' say.

Along with clay utensils and pots there were pictures there of people and places but mostly of people, singles and a few groups. Most of the people were Spring's age, but one was of a younger woman with dark black hair, red eyes and pale skin.

All of this and the way the rest of the cave was laid out, with good furniture, and other things indicated that spring had been here for a long time. _And is very good with her hands, considering most of that furniture wouldn't have fit through the entrance._ He thought to himself smirking a little.

A meow from near one of the small alcove cut into the wall however wiped Ranma's smirk off his face and he backed away hurriedly. Spring noticed this and she turned, one eyebrow raised. "What is it?"

"Er, um, do you have a, a c-cat?" Ranma asked hesitantly.

"Archimedes, yes." Spring nodded moving in the direction of the noise. She moved some clay pots to one side and pulled out a very old, very decrepit looking cat. This was a cat that had lived all its nine lives to the fullest, and was looking to simply laze about its remaining days as much as possible. "Why, what is the matter with cats?"

"J-just keep him away from me, okay?" Ranma said, trying to keep a tremor of fear out of his voice and failing.

"There's a story there I suppose." Spring mused, gesturing Ranma to sit at a small table, while she place Archimedes back onto his shelf. "Don't worry, Archimedes doesn't like strangers any more than you seem to like cats."

Ranma hesitantly sat at the table, and Spring moved over to the small kitchen, preparing a small meal, as she began to ask about the fall of Semaphore, which segued into some fights that Spring had seen in her lifetime of a similar nature. That discussion turned into Ranma spending the night, and continued the next day.

As Ranma may to leave Spring stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "You are welcome to stay here, I think, I think you and I have more to talk about, and this place is as good as any as a base camp for your study of Grimm."

It took some convincing, but eventually Ranma agreed. "Just keep that cat away from me!"

Spring laughed, and motioned Ranma back to his chair. "So, what have you discovered in your observations so far?"

 **OOO one year later OOO**

Ranma finished putting the finishing touch on the message on the gravestone set into the center of the cave, sighing faintly as he stared around at the cave where he had stayed for the past year. He hadn't known when he moved in with Spring what would happen, that she would have so much to teach him, and vice versa, or that she was lonely and he was so lacking in a motherly figure.

She had taught him to live again for more than combat or hunting down Grimm, something he desperately needed after the events in Semaphore. And he had taught her to have hope in humanity once again, as well as many other things about Remnant, about Dust and even the Grimm.

They both got something out of the arrangement, and it simply continued one day turning into the next until the day Spring grew sick. It wasn't a sickness though, not really it was simply old age, and it came upon her suddenly soon after Archimedes had passed away. Within a few days she passed away leaving Ranma alone.

She had left all of her worldly possessions to him, not that it amounted to much. She didn't have much in the way of money, and all her possessions were the furniture and a few personal items. Ranma took only one of them, a small green stone Spring had used as a worry stone for so long it had smoothed to a magnificent sheen. "Something to remember you by." he murmured, bringing the stone up to his forehead touching their murmuring a prayer to the Sun Goddess for the woman.

He would think about the other gift Spring had left him later, or as late as he could. Right now, however Ranma was prepared to once again join civilization, and it was time he got to it. _But first…_

With an evil smile Ranma went about the cave and booby-trapped everything he could, using every trick his old man had taught him to first make some amusing traps. And then one, not at all amusing one using the dust generator and a few tripwires set right before the grave.

Then he left the cave, breathing in deeply and grinning now. _If I'm not coming back here again, then there's no need ta leave the Grimm here alive any longer, and hey, every little bit helps right._ With that thought he laughed, then shot out into the forest, intent on exacting some long overdue punishment on the Grimm in the area.

* * *

 **End Chapter**


	3. Chapter 3

**Still don't own 'em.**

* * *

 **Chapter 3 Back Among Humanity**

Ranma made his way quickly out of the mountains, only occasionally having to deal with Grimm after his initial killing spree thanks to how good he'd gotten at avoiding them. Occasionally he'd go out of his way to engage an A or B class Grimm, figuring the less of those there were around the better, though he didn't see any S-class. Indeed over the last year he had only seen three S-classes widely dispersed in area.

Once down into the desert Ranma kept on going, crossing the desert once again. It was a lot easier this time without constant Grimm attacks, and he was once again picked up on the road from South to North (yes that was the name of it, it was the only road there after all), paying his dues by defending the small caravan which had pick him up.

By the time they arrived it in Vacuo the city, the Gates of the massive walls closing behind them, Ranma was frowning, having dealt with 12 different attacks, all of them led by a Big Mama, or a Great Vulture. He stopped in with the gate guards, asking "Have there been more Grimm attacks lately?"

The man who had checked the family through the gat nodded slightly. "We've been dealing with them for over about…" he turned shouting out, "Hey Larry, how long…"

"Two months you moron." said another voice older and rather rasping. Ranma turned to see a heavily sunburned and probably dehydrated man simply laying there on a sofa, his wolf tail flicking in the heat. Larry opened one eye, glaring at the first man with baleful intent. "I just got finished telling you that 2 minutes ago Moe."

"Sorry, I was the one who asked." Ranma broke in before the harangue, which sounds well-rehearsed, could continue.

Larry shrugged. "Whatever. Yeah, we've seen more Grimm attacks for about two months now. Some of the Hunters say there's some kind of power vacuum out there in the desert, and all of the Grimm've been vying to fill it up ever since Semaphore fell, and it's only now spilling over to attacks on us mere humans."

Ranma nodded, not indicating that he understood why that was. Ranma didn't want publicity, publicity would just get in the way of becoming a Hunter. But first Ranma wanted to leave Vacuo. Ranma felt he had learned as much as he could about Grimm in here in Vacuo as he could, and frankly he had enough of deserts to last a lifetime.

When he brought that up and his lack of papers however Larry, who apparently was some kind of overseer for the guards of the city shrugged his shoulders. "You don't got papers, none of the other nations are going to give you the time of day man, specially Atlas, bunch of prigs over there. They don't care how much ya can learn out in the real world, they want you to go to school at an accredited Hunter college, and unfortunately, Vacuo's Shade is kinda looked down on by the other nations for how little book learning they offer. Even Mistral won't let you act like a Hunter if you come from Shade these days, fucking Atlasian Council pushing for standard this, standard that!"

The man scoffed spitting to one side. "Personally, I think field experience matters more than that. The only 'accredited' place that would even look at you is Beacon over in Vale, and even they need proof of citizenship. Hell, even **Shale'd** demand ya pass their classes for the requisite three years. Nope, there's no way ta skip right ta hunterhood."

"And if I went to Semaphore?" Ranma asked cocking his head to one side.

Larry paused then slowly draining a water bottle before setting it aside. "Then if you still want to be a Hunter man, I will salute you like a fucking Atlasian robot. That was the worst disaster since the Great War, and that's saying something. I bet I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of students who still wanted to be Hunters after that."

He shook his head. "But even so, none of the other nations will care. You'll still have to go back to school, graduate from a college at least. I'd recommend Beacon, their headmasters a pretty cool guy according to rumor. Or, if ya want ta stay here in Vacuo or maybe Vacuo and Vale, Shale."

In Beacon Professor Ozpin sneezed suddenly. Frowning he wondered if he was coming down with a cold as he looked over a report from one of his oldest friends, musing about possibilities, and how much he could get away with.

Ranma didn't care how cool Beacon's headmaster was, he didn't want to be a student. Ranma wanted to be a Hunter, right **now**. To his mind, the schools would have little to nothing to teach him he couldn't learn easier or faster on his own. _So the legal way o' doing thing's out, okay, so we turn to other solutions._

To that end Ranma found himself down at the docks, overlooking them from a vantage point high up on one of the multistory stone buildings that made up much of the city. Eventually Ranma found what he was looking for, a group of people that looked like they belonged to a gang. Though admittedly in Vacuo that was a very tough distinction to spot given how most people here dressed.

Jumping down, he trailed them easily, finding them entering a small bar, which when he entered it Ranma realized was much bigger on the inside. _This place must back up into another building_ he mused as he moved through the doorway. _Interesting, and pretty smart._

He was stopped suddenly as a man's hand fell on his shoulder, but the man squawked when Ranma simply reached back, picked him up by his wrist and held him extended into the air, balancing him there. There were clicking sounds from all around him, and Ranma smiled thinly as more than half of the clientele of the bar turned to him with guns raised. "Wow, am I interrupting a meetin', or is it a really slow day?"

"Put me down you crazy punk!" The man in the air shouted.

"As soon as yer friends put their weapons down." Ranma replied with a smile. "Before that, I might need a meat shield."

"You got big brass ones to come walking in here like this." said an older man, bald, with a mustache that looked like a Fu Manchu gone horribly, horribly wrong. He wore what looked like a decent suit, complete with cravat, something Ranma hadn't seen before since arriving in this world, and rarely before that, but the clash between that and his mustache as bizarre in the extreme. "You're either brave or stupid, which one is it?"

"More like uncaring." Ranma said with a shrug. "Unless you've got bullets that can penetrate aura, you've got nothing that can hurt me, at least nothing that I'll stand still to let you try and after fighting Grimm for more than a year now, you guys don't really scare me. Sorry, I can understand you'd be a little terrifying to civilians, but I don't know if I've ever actually been one of those."

This was said in such a deadpan tone of voice that the old man actually barked a laugh and waved his hand. At this signal the toughs around them all put their weapons away, grumbling irritably. But the old man ignored them, addressing Ranma. "What do ya need kid, nobody comes in here without needing something, even Hunter wannabes like you."

"That's precisely what I am." Ranma said setting the man he'd been holding up down gently. "A Hunter wannabe, I have the skills to be the Hunter but not the paperwork. You see where I'm goin' with this."

Moments later 'the boss' as he was called, his name was never used around Ranma and Ranma didn't ask, sat down with Ranma at a table. After taking a sip from something that fizzed he shook his head. "Forgeries aren't my line of work, there's not enough call for them here in Vacuo to make keepin' a forger on retainer worth the money. I've got contacts to do that kind of thing for shipments and stuff into ports in other nations, but I don't think I'd recommend any of them to make you a Hunter's license that could pass muster."

The bald man shook his head again. "Those things are **serious** deals. No one in their right mind is going to make a forgery for anyone who can't back it up. We might be criminals, but we've got some moral standards."

"Fair enough." Ranma shrugged. "So if you have someone you can recommend, I'd have to prove to them I've got the bonafides? I can do that easily enough."

The man nodded, but he was staring at Ranma now thoughtfully. "Your face looks a little familiar kid, or that ponytail and your shirt does anyway. You go to Semaphore?"

"That's right. Why?" Ranma asked, cocking his head quizzically.

The man nodded. "There were some weird stories about that, about two of the students who really stepped up and did more to help the evacuation than any of the teachers even the principal. Nothing substantiated, but some interesting stuff, most of it linked to the witch's apprentice."

"The witch's apprentice?"

"Just a name for one of the professors over at Vale's Beacon Academy." The man replied, not realizing Ranma's question was rhetorical, actually shuddering a little. "Trust me, it's well chosen."

The discussion quickly moved on and eventually they reached an agreement. Ranma would ship out to Vale as one of the guards on a shipment of contraband that the man was sending there. "It's not drugs is it?" Ranma asked, his smile fading with the suddenness of an executioner's axe coming down.

It might have struck Jaune or some of his friends back in Nerima as odd that Ranma was okay with working with criminals, but Ranma was Japanese, and the Japanese sometimes had an interesting view of crime. Their point of view was that criminals will always be with us, and so long as they were kept out of the public eye for the most part, kept their violent crimes to themselves, and did not flout the laws too openly, there was no reason to try and do the impossible and abolish crime entirely. Ranma took it a step further, not caring about little crimes at all but stepping in hard if he felt the need.

Drugs were one such matter. Like rape or murder, Ranma had no pity or remorse for anyone who dealt or did drugs. If the guy in front of him was dealing with drugs, Ranma would be the only one walking out of this building with all his limbs intact.

To his surprise the man guffawed. "None of us who've been in this business for any length of time deal drugs kid. That's a fool's game, it brings too much heat, too many people who sell it try their products, and once you're hooked, you're hooked and you can say goodbye to common sense or self-preservation. If I find any of my boys doing any shit like that, I come down on 'em a hell of a lot harder than the police would, believe you me."

"No, it's basically various types of alcohol, some of which can have some interesting effects, and all of which are technically illegal to transport across country lines. But very lucrative to those of us who can get it to our clients anyway."

Ranma nodded at that, indicating he understood and the man went on. "So you'll guard the shipment from here along the coast to Vale. Once there, you'll need to find a bar called Hei Days that's HEI. Ask for man named Junior. He's mostly an information broker these days, but he is one of the most reliable and organized members of the criminal underworld in Vale. He's got an excellent forager on retainer, and should be able to hook you up with a Hunter's license if anyone can. Mind you, it will cost a **lot**."

"And I'm just paying my way by guarding your shipment as it goes?" Ranma asked.

"Pretty much kid. I'm taking a risk even letting you know about Junior, and I wouldn't do it if some of my men hadn't been killed on the last trip along the coast. You'll probably have to work for Junior, but he won't ask you to do anything like murder someone or anything like that, again that kind of thing brings too much heat down on you. You'll probably have to work as a jack of all trades, or a bouncer or something of that nature. Though he will test you out first. Like I said earlier, even a criminal won't give you a Hunter's license if you can't back it up."

And so Ranma found himself heading out to the ocean, but not before taking a moment that evening to call the Arcs, telling them he was back in civilization. He got their answering machine, Lavender's ecstatic voice shouting about how they were heading out to celebrate their son's acceptance to Beacon, and Ranma smiled wondering if during his time in Vale he'd meet up with Jaune again. _It'd be interesting to see how the kid's grown since I left._

Then he called his sister, but this time he got a reply. "Do you know what time it is whoever the hell you are?" her voice muttered, the video portion of the call blocked for the moment.

"Hello to you to sister dear." said Ranma laughing. "How're you doing?"

"Ranma?! How am **I** doing! How dare you ask that, where've you been for the last year!? No nevermind I don't want to know, why the **hell** didn't you contact me sooner!"

"Because I was well out in the boonies, and there was no signal." Ranma asked. "You knew where I was going, what do you think I died or something?"

"Yes! **No one** goes out into the Grimm lands and comes back! When I heard that you had actually followed through with that mad plan of yours to head out to study the Grimm, I nearly left my apprenticeship to go in search of you. And I would have, if I thought I could've found you, you young, suicidal idiot!"

Ranma shrugged again, watching as the video pickup finally activated showing his sister. Her face looked somewhat older than he had expected it to look if he was honest. Her hair was disheveled as if she had woken up, but her black eyes were staring at him angrily.

"You should've had more faith in me than that. I won't say that stalking Grimm is easy, but it's doable especially if you can take to the trees. At least in Vacuo anyway, the Vultures don't perch on trees, and none of the land variety ever seem ta look up for some reason. It's sort of a blank zone for Grimm, least in Vacuo."

"Ranma..." Benzaiten growled angrily, her hands visible now clenching and unclenching as if she wanted to strangle him. "You make it sound so **simple**! She sighed then shaking her head. "I should have expected this from you I suppose, given your upbringing with that man."

Despite having shared two years' worth of memories with Ranma, Benzaiten never referred to Genma as anything but 'that man.' Ranma thought that was a little odd, but wasn't going to push about it. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked instead.

"Nothing," Benzaiten sighed, setting it aside. "Nothing. So, what are your plans?"

Ranma shrugged his shoulders. "Get a Hunter's license, then go hunting, learn more about the Grimm if I can."

"You're going to go back to school then?" Benzaiten asked surprised. "You'll have to unless you want to stay in Vacuo, and even there you won't get governmental assistance unless you go to Shade."

"I don't want to stay in Vacuo." Ranma laughed quietly, "I've had enough of deserts thank you! Nah, I'm going to go traveling, I'll get a Hunter's license somehow, don't worry."

"Oh I am now very worried." Benzaiten shook her head. "What are you up to Ranma?"

"Nothing bad, don't worry, well not that bad anyway." Ranma said again hoping that with repetition it would sink in.

"Nothing bad doesn't mean nothing illegal," said Benzaiten rather accurately interpreting that bit of misdirection.

"Gotta hang up sis, I'll look ya up when I'm in Vale if I have the time." Ranma said irritated that the girl was acting as if she knew better than he did. Which most people would've agreed she did but Ranma wasn't about to be mothered by her.

"Ranma wait…" and with that Ranma hung up, knowing he would probably pay for that down the line, especially if Benzaiten was at Beacon, but not caring at present

 **OOOOOOO**

Despite the crime lord's concerns, the trip by sea around the coast of Vacuo and Vale to the city of Vale was actually uneventful to Ranma. Sure they were attacked several times, but nothing more than a B class, and Ranma dealt with them all quite easily.

The few varieties of ocean going Grimm weren't very aggressive, though the kind that were called Sweepers were. The Sweepers, a bird-type Grimm, floated on the water when they weren't attacking. Nonetheless, Ranma didn't run into any issues even with the B class variant of the Sweepers which was almost as large as a Vulture. It wasn't very intelligent, and it's armor was minimal so Ranma could easily handle it midair with his Saotome-Aerial style.

Soon enough they were on the docks of Vale, and Ranma had a written introduction to Junior. It took him a while to find the bar though, even from rooftop. Vale was much larger and much more of a sprawling sort of place than Vacuo or Semaphore, and he had gotten out of the practice of being around this much civilization.

The city was pretty darn cool however. It had several parks laid out here and there, lots of shops and lots of food that Ranma was eagerly looking forward to try it. _Going to have to figure that into the time I work with Junior for then_ Ranma thought rather morosely. While he didn't have anything against the criminal element, that didn't mean he was particularly happy being indebted to them.

Eventually he saw a sign for Hei Days, and entering it ignoring the bouncer he found that the interior was that of a bar/dance club/restaurant. The music was pounding out and it actually sounded pretty good. _Wow I really have been out in the boonies for too long,_ Ranma thought amused _. This was never my scene before_.

Walking through, he noticed about six obvious guards and two women who were obviously the main bouncers. They were dressed in similar outfits, short skirts, which looked like that of ballerinas complete with those stilts that people called spiked heels, and long garters underneath along with gloves. One had her outfit all in red, the other in white, but other than that they looked like identical twins.

The two girls saw him, and continued to watch Ranma as he moved through the club, possibly realizing that he wasn't one of the regular clientele, or maybe just couldn't quite fit in with the crowd around him somehow. Whatever the case, Ranma felt their eyes on him, but didn't care to comment. They were just doing their job after all, and neither was a threat to him.

He sat down at the bar, looking at the older bearded gentleman. He had a very good suit on, which was just tight enough to show off his broad shoulders without being obvious about it, a very neat tie and beard. "What can I get you?"

"Are you Junior?" Ranma asked.

"Depends on who's asking."

Ranma silently slipped him the note of introduction from 'the boss', and he opened it, reading it quickly. "You guarded the latest shipment, good, I've got boys down there already taking it to the warehouse. They said you'd dealt with a B-class Grimm on the trip, that true?"

"I wouldn't call those things B-class." Ranma said with a shrug. "They're not very versatile, and they're stupid as hell. They're only B-class at sea 'cause there aren't any other aggressive Grimm types out there."

"There are a few if you move away from the coastline," Junior said with a shrug. "Sending goods up to Atlas or Mistral is B-level work for Hunters, and practically impossible for us criminals. Still, that means I'm going to have to test you to make sure your Hunter material."

Ranma shrugged again. "Yeah I figured."

"Let's get that over with now so neither of us has to waste our time." Junior replied. "Melanie, Miltia, let's head to the back."

It was only then that Ranma realized the two girls had come up behind him, and he turned nodding at them. Neither of them had any aggressive feelings or he would've felt their intent, another thing he thanked his father for. _Even so, letting 'em get this close ta me because I can't feel any intent from 'em is a bad sign. Need ta get used ta people bein' a danger again._ The trip by boat had not helped much in this area since Ranma hadn't interacted with the crew or other guards much.

The four of them walked into a back room which was laid out like a gym with several sets of weightlifting machines, a few runners, and other devices. Ranma nodded at the sight then moved into the cleared center area of the room, cracking his neck a little and rolling his shoulders before taking his normal non-stance.

The two girls moved across from him, then without warning attacked. Ranma nodded, after all Grimm certainly wouldn't allow you to take a stance or ready yourself, and you rarely got time for that in a fight against people either. But other than that the twins weren't much, slower, much more predictable than Grimm or even Spring the few time's they'd sparred. Though their tandem work was excellent.

Ranma weaved, dodged jumped, evading all of their attacks. Occasionally he reached tapping one or the other on the forehead or shoulders.

Eventually the one in white shouted angrily, "Aren't you going to fight back! And what's with all the finger touching!?"

"That's enough girls," Junior said sighing.

Miltia shook her head. "He was doing that to prove he could hit us any time he wanted to sister. You let your anger get ahead of you sometimes."

Ranma nodded and Junior looked at him. "That was impressive I suppose, I could get you a D or C ranked Hunter license with that. That'll give you some government aid and half the cost of travel expenses while doing any jobs related to Grimm. They wouldn't give you full access to the Hunter's exclusive files on Grimm that all governments keep on file, and you wouldn't be able to take any of the real high-paying jobs."

Ranma frowned thoughtfully. While money really didn't matter to him all that much, he just wanted the paperwork so he could travel, he was realistic enough to understand that money did matter to other people, and it could be used to get him a lot of things. _Weapons for one, I want to replace my mono wire, I love using that at Semaphore_. _And some guns, some kind of distance weapon that doesn't involve hurling my shield._ _I'm good at that, but until I have mono wire and train so I can retrieve it easily in combat it'd be stupid to toss it away like that all the time._ Ranma had trained with his shield often over the last year, and had become rather expert with it but it still wasn't a long-range weapon, midrange at best.

As he was thinking that Junior went on. "Come up to my office, we'll fill out some of the information now, get your picture, and then we'll talk prices."

As they walked Ranma tried to ignore the two voices behind him. "Wow, I've never seen someone that mobile before, or that flexible! What do you think Miltia?"

"Sister! Don't say it like that!"

"Oh please, I saw you staring at those abs of his when he dodged around! Besides, did you see that rear, magnificent!"

"Sister!"

Ranma groaned, unable to keep it in and Junior chuckled a little. "Don't worry about those two, as long as Miltia's around Melanie's bark is a lot worse than her bite. Mind you when she isn't around, then you might have to worry."

"Noted." Ranma said dryly.

A few moments later, they were in Junior's office and Junior was noting down Ranma's information, but he paused and stared at Ranma. "You were at Semaphore when it fell? You seriously fought in that battle?"

"Beginning to end," Ranma said with faint, cold smirk on his face. "Not exactly my favorite memory."

"There any truth to the rumor there was a Leo involved?"

"Yep." Ranma said simply. "At least at first, I killed it around six or seven hours after the invasion began. After that though, there were simply too many Grimm."

" **You** killed the Leo?" Junior said skeptically. "You expect me to believe that?"

Ranma shrugged. "Don't care if you believe it or not, and I didn't do it alone. I had Principal Dorothy there, and four other teachers. Only Dorothy and Geomancy made it out of that fight." He said sadly shaking his head. While Ranma hadn't really gotten along with any of the teachers except for Aaron, Aaron's death still bothered him. He gently twitched one of his pant pockets, the pocket that held only the shield within it's ki space, renewing his vow to be worthy of it.

"That's a little more believable." Junior said slowly, staring into Ranma eyes as he looked away. Junior had gotten very good about seeing when someone was bullshitting him, you had to be in this line of work. And Ranma wasn't bullshitting him, that thousand-yard stare was one that many Hunters had after a few years in the field, or some of the old soldiers from the Great War.

"All right, I'll put you down as a surviving senior who had to spend a year in rehab, that'll do the trick I think. Then we can say you were apprenticed for another few months, and that'll do for Mistral and Vale. Atlas still won't accept you as a Hunter unless you go on a few joint missions between them and one of the other countries first. Apprenticeships like that aren't normal, but everyone will believe it in this case, that should be good enough for now. Now let's talk about cost..."

After a few moments of haggling, Ranma agreed to work with for Junior as a bouncer for three months. That would be enough time to pay off the fee for Junior's work on his papers, while also giving Ranma some spending money on the side. Lodging for the first few days would be on Junior, but after that Ranma would have to either start taking it out of his pay, or find his own place to sleep. Ranma didn't have a problem with that, he could find a rooftop somewhere out there easily enough.

After the interview ended, Junior frowned, staring at Ranma's clothing. "But before you come in tomorrow, you need to get a suit! I can't let anyone working for me walk around like they just came in from the boonies."

"I'm not wearing a monkey suit like yours dude." Ranma said, crossing his hands in an X in front of his chest. "I ain't against getting some new clothing, but not a suit."

Junior frowned, but the door to his office opened just then, showing Melanie and Miltia standing there. "Don't worry Junior we'll make sure our new partner here is dolled up appropriately. If he won't wear a suit, why not something from Mistral, or Asian style? I know the best store for that kind of thing!"

Ranma's eyes narrowed as a shiver went down his spine. He could remember all the time Akane or one of the others would drag him off to shop with them, and it was never fun. Well, unless one of his rivals or some random attacker showed up, then it was fun even if Ranma was the only one who ever thought so. "I think I can dress myself girls, just tell me the name of the store, and…"

"Oh no, we have to make sure your new clothes at least match the quality if not the type of the suits the mooks here wear." Melanie laughed, grabbing one of Ranma's arms and dragging him off. "Now come on, time's a wastin'."

Sighing, Ranma allowed Melanie to pull him along, though he did look at Miltia. "Mooks?"

"That's their actual job description." Miltia replied, smiling lightly. "Many a gang member has 'professional mook' in their job description."

About forty minutes later, the trio found the dress store Melanie felt would have fashions acceptable to both Ranma and Junior. To the girl's surprise, Ranma was happy enough to get some Asian style pants and shirts, but drew the line at some of the higher-end stuff. "I don't want anything that I can't move around in easily or that'll not stand up to a lot of strain."

Eventually however his two new acquaintances browbeat Ranma into a decent suit. It consisted of a quipai style black shirt with the image of a horse delineated on one pectoral in light white lines, along with matching pants. Stepping out of the dressing room, Ranma ran a finger around his collar. "Meh, for a monkey suit it doesn't look too bad, though I don't like how tight the collar is."

For a moment Melanie and Miltia simply stared. Ranma had grown several inches since coming to this world, and now stood at a little over six feet. His shoulders had broadened noticeably from his time in Nerima and he still retained the thin waist, muscles, the muscles of a swimmer or gymnast rather than body builder, of a martial artist. Where in Nerima he still had the build of a boy, now he was a young man, and it showed in all the right ways.

Ranma frowned, clicking his fingers in front of the girls faces. "Oy, anyone in there."

Shaking her head Melanie came out of her stupor, smacking her thigh against her sister's to bring her out of it in turn. "Damn Ranma, you clean up real good! Isn't that right Miltia?"

"She-she's right. You look really good in that Ranma." Miltia said, smiling. "Now, let's show you around the city, and then talk about the does and don'ts of being a Bouncer in Hei Days."

Just then however, Ranma was saved by the bell, specifically the two girl's scrolls going off. Melanie glared at hers for a moment then shook her head. "We'll have to take a raincheck on that, Junior wants us back on the clock soonest. We'll see you later Ranma."

Ranma nodded, relieved since he had gotten rather bored walking the streets instead of roof-hopping. It was only after they left that Ranma realized that buying this and the rest of the clothing would put him further into Junior's debt. But seeing no alternative, Ranma simply groaned for a moment before paying for the clothing and exiting the shop quickly.

 **OOOOOOO**

He went to work the next day, switching off with the two girls for a few days, proving his worth on the fourth day. A group of young idiots were trying to muscle in on Junior's territory, and 12 of them made the mistake of coming into the bar early in the day. They'd expected to meet no resistance, but Ranma was there helping to set it up after an eventful evening the night before. He sent them all packing minus their weapons, which he had broken with his fingers, before threatening to stick the pieces where the sun didn't shine.

That evening Junior congratulated him on that bit of work, and Ranma asked "By the way, do you mind if I use your kitchen here?"

"I don't mind but why?" Junior asked. "There something wrong with the food we serve?"

"I just miss the food I grew up with y'know, all this pasta stuff is strange to me." Ranma said with a shrug. He had of course grown up in Asia, where pasta was simply noodles. They also served a lot of fried foods here, which Ranma didn't like. He'd looked around, and other than A Simple Wok, he had been unable to find any Asian style restaurants, or at least what he would call Asian. Asian fusion was not real Asian. _Mind you, some of their meals are delicious, but damn expensive!_

Junior simply nodded, and gestured him into the kitchen, where Ranma went to work, once more wondering how strangely like yet unlike this world was from Earth. The common language was English, the foods were practically the same, though they didn't seem to have the same origins. Asian for example was from an ancient empire that had ruled all of Mistral and Atlas at one point before disintegrating into a civil war. English was a language of another empire that had ruled the 'known world', spreading the written word and the language before simply collapsing, unable to sustain its borders against the Grimm.

Finally he was finished. Simple Rice balls to start and some sushi, something he had not found any evidence of either in Vacuo or here in Vale.

With that done, Ranma moved out into the bar where he sat down at one end and began to eat, joined by Melanie and Miltia quickly, as was normal these days. The two of them arrived around an hour before the club was due to open every night, mostly to hear if there was anyone they should watch out for coming in, or any business deals going down they'd have to serve as bodyguards for. If there wasn't, they joined Ranma with Melanie teasing him or insulting him in turns as a hick while Miltia tried to get her to stop.

Ranma took it and oftentimes returned as good as he got thanks to a year spent with Spring, who had quite a tongue on her once she got to know you, and enjoying the interaction. It reminded him of his time in Nerima in a way, though at the time Ranma had no training in how to deal with it. Besides, the girls were cute, not his type but cute and it was nice to be around girls he could feel that way towards without feeling weird about it, or worry it was because of some obligation. Despite what many people back in Nerima thought, Ranma had a libido. He didn't really know what to do about it, but he had one.

About three weeks passed, with Ranma slowly earning his pay, getting to know the city, and generally making himself at home back in society. He occasionally worked as a chef, since Junior and the twins had all tried his food and liked the unusual taste of it. It became a draw for the club, not a large one but a decent enough one that Junior decided to put some of the food on the menu. He and Ranma started to haggle about whether or not Ranma should train up the cooks, with Ranma insisting he'd do it if Junior knocked a month off of the time he'd have to work for Junior to pay off his debt for his papers. Junior however was adamant that that was one thing and this was another. They were at loggerheads about it, so Ranma kept on getting called back into the kitchen.

One day Ranma came out of the kitchen with a small bowl of ice cream as a treat for himself only to stop. Near the bar was a man dressed in a white pressed suit and top hat over orange hair with a cane who was seemingly getting in Junior's face about something. Next to the man sat a petite girl who looked like she was thirteen or fourteen to Ranma, with brown, white and pink hair, and hecto-chromatic eyes. She was smiling, staring around her then down at the menu she held in one hand then up at where the two men were arguing.

With one eyebrow raised in surprise Ranma made his way over, right up until he stood behind the man shouting at Junior. "Is this guy bothering you Junior? You want me to get rid of him for you?"

"You **must** be new!" the man said turning to him. He looked Ranma up and down in surprise. "A freelancer of some kind? You certainly don't dress like junior's normal boys. Not that I don't approve, you certainly have your own sense of style which is always a good thing. Individuality, that's key! And so's knowing your limits. My name's Roman Torchwick kid." His smile thinned on the last word, and he smirked at Ranma around his cigar.

"Haven't found my limits yet, and if we're exchangin' names, mine's Ranma." Ranma said with a shrug, willing to talk since the man was willing to. "But as to the fashion thing, right back at you. You've got that whole gentlemen thief thing down. Don't mean I'm not gonna throw ya out if yer making trouble though. And I didn't know criminals had bring their daughter to work day."

Roman took his cigar out of his mouth slowly, staring at Ranma while the girl's eyes, which had been locked on Ranma's hand which held his ice cream bowl, widened in surprise before narrowing dangerously, like that of an angry cat. "I'm sorry, I just want to make certain I heard you right. Did you just call Neopolitan my daughter?"

"Isn't she? I mean she certainly looks young enough." Ranma said, then bent his upper body backwards as suddenly a very thin dagger tried to gouge out his eyeball. He looked down at Neo, who was looking up at him in surprise, and he said blandly, "So, not your daughter? But she's so small!"

Neo's face hardened further and she disappeared from view. Ranma felt the air move behind him, and he jumped up, avoiding a kick that would've taken him in the ribs, before pulling himself to one side quickly with a grip on a nearby banister as the girl again disappeared for a moment reappearing with another kick that would've taken him in the face.

"Did I say something wrong?" Ranma laughed, he was enjoying this. Bouncer work was so **boring**! Besides, the girl was good, and her little illusion tricks made for an interesting threat.

Back at the bar Roman was laughing his head off, while Junior was groaning. "Roman, if Neo damages the bar you'll have to pay for it."

"Oh please, this should be…" he blinked as Neo landed next to him, having been thrown there by Ranma. "Having trouble Neo?" he asked, **very** surprised.

Neo scowled angrily, though of course she didn't make a sound. Neo was a mute who had been born that way. She was also a psychopath, a killer who more than occasionally enjoyed her work. She was one of very few people that Roman Torchwick was frightened of, but she was also easily the most playful and easily diverted person on that very short list.

She suddenly disappeared, her movement covered by the illusions her Semblance allowed her to create. She moved behind Ranma and tried to stab him in the throat, but Ranma dodged to one side, then flung a spoonful of ice cream in her face. "Ya need to cool off Neo."

Neo lifted a finger to her face, scraping away the ice cream and then slowly licking it. "Waste of good ice cream." Ranma muttered.

The girl growled again pointed at the cup of ice cream then at herself.

"You'll stop attacking me if I give you my ice cream?" Ranma asked.

Neo nodded, eagerly. Ranma shrugged and handed over, turning to look at the other two men. "Well, that was weird. So do you want me to…"

Junior shook his head, getting his bearings once again from the surprising escalation of events. "Don't worry about it Ranma, this is Roman, he's an associate of mine. Getting in my face like that is just his way, he doesn't seem to understand the concept of personal space sometimes."

"The wound, it cuts deep." Roman moaned theatrically, though his eyes never left off watching Ranma, his face hiding his sudden interest in the youth easily.

"Sorry about that then," Ranma said with a shrug. With that he turned away, heading back towards the kitchen to help prepare for tonight.

He didn't realize Neo was following him until she passed him quickly, heading towards the refrigerator. "Hey, wait!"

Before he could stop her she had pulled out a huge gallon of ice cream, and sat on one of the nearby tables eating it eagerly. Surprisingly to Ranma none of the other kitchen workers seem to care, and he frowned at them all. "This is normal?"

"Better than the alternative," one of them muttered, before being hushed by his fellows. Neo stopped eating to stare at the man for a moment before slowly licking her spoon clean pointing at Ranma then at the ice cream.

Ranma frowned "I'm not good at charades."

The girl pouted, took some more ice cream, ate it, pointed at Ranma, then went back to eating. "As long as I supply you with ice cream you won't attack me? But that was fun!"

Neo scowled then went back to eating. Ranma stared at her occasionally as he held the others, watching as she put away more than 5 gallons worth of ice cream in a single sitting. "Where the heck do you put it all?" he asked at last.

Her tongue languidly licking at the last of the ice cream Neo finished polishing off her spoon before putting the gallon of ice cream to one side and thrusting her chest out.

"That's not the way that works it you know!" Ranma said with a laugh, deciding to just roll with it.

Neo shrugged again, and went right on eating.

 **OOOOOOO**

Several weeks later Ranma set a plate of Chicken parmesan in front of Roman, his eyes moving constantly from one place or the other. "Where's yer little Ice Cream guzzlin' shadow, Torchwick?"

Setting down his wine glass Roman tipped his hat toward Ranma. "She's off on her own at present, no doubt fleecing some poor ice cream vendor of all his wares. What about you, have you thought about my offer? You really are too good for this place you know, no offense meant to Junior of course…"

His little smirk gave him the lie on that one, but not enough to call attention to. The fact that Ranma also served as a distraction for Neo also went unsaid. The diminutive psychopath loved to test Ranma's situational awareness, and the fact he didn't take her attempts to disembowel him personally was also amusing to her. He could sense her intent to attack him, but nothing else.

Roman honestly didn't know which of them would win if they ever fought all out, but had a feeling it wouldn't be Neo, which of course made Ranma even more interesting. And that had also made him something of a wild card, one that Roman was eager to keep to himself. His new… employer was such that maybe having a random card that could possibly be trusted to throw a wrench in the works might be a good thing.

Ranma laughed at the dig, but didn't comment. He didn't know much about Roman other than he was a thief, but he knew that the eccentric man contracted out gang members from Junior to help him do whatever it was he did sometimes, so needed Junior too much to alienate him entirely. But he also held something over Junior, so the man couldn't afford to turn him away.

"No thanks. I ain't got anything against criminal types, but I'm not one of you either." Ranma laughed. "I'm just here long enough to pay off Junior for my papers then I can get to travelling again."

"You know you could do just as much travelling if you worked with me, both in Vale and elsewhere…" Roman stopped as he saw his wheedling wasn't getting anywhere then sighed theatrically. "Ah well, then Neo and my other associates are going to just have to deal without 24/7 access to your culinary expertise. What did you do to that… what did you call it, sushi, anyway? My business partner couldn't get enough of it."

"Heh, secret family recipe Roman, sorry." Ranma laughed, as did the other man, then Ranma turned away, leaving the criminal to his meal while Junior walked over to talk to him.

Moving over to the doorway leading into the kitchen Ranma paused, leaning against the doorframe and taking in the club. This way if the waiters took an order with any of the dishes only he could cook he could move back into the kitchen, but in the meantime, he could fulfill his original job for Junior, that of bouncer. He nodded up at the twins, who nodded back smiling at their favorite chef/eye-candy, a shiver going through Ranma as he saw the look in Melanie's eyes. _Yeah, gonna double check my door tonight, it's getting worse!_

Miltia on the other hand was a nice girl, or as nice as she could get away with being the bodyguard of a gang leader. After nearly a month, Ranma could safely say the two of them were friends, almost like he and Jaune had been.

The night passed uneventfully, with Roman leaving about an hour later with a few of Junior's flunkies. Ranma had been called into the kitchen several times, but there had been no problem so far. That ended abruptly however when Trouble with a capital T walked through the double doors.

Trouble in this case was a blonde haired young woman around his own age if Ranma had to guess. She had a body that many women would cheerfully kill for. Her long, unblemished legs were spectacular, encased in orange socks that reached just above equally long brown boots, short black shorts under some kind of belt and skirt combo, something Ranma hadn't seen before. Then there was her chest, which looked as large as Benzaiten's only even perkier, covered by a tan vest with gold piping over a yellow low-cut crop top. A black crest that resembled a burning heart was stitched on one side of the crop top, which left her stomach clear. A stomach, furthermore, that was flat and toned.

Finally to complete the package was her hair. Long enough to touch her rear, it was a wild mane of blonde hair which seemed to lighten at the tips. It looked almost like a fiery trail behind her as the young woman made her way through the club. The few remaining patrons parted before her as she strode up to the bar.

 _Yep, that's trouble. Those things on her wrists ain't toys, and she sure as hell don't look like a gal who'd come to this club without anyone accompanying her unless she was here for a reason…_

With that thought, Ranma quickly strode over to the bar, beating the girl there easily before taking over from the bartender already on duty. He waved the man off, turning just in time to watch Trouble sit down next to Junior. When the girl spoke it was in a low, playful tone of voice, a nice purring sort of alto. "Strawberry Sunrise, no ice, oh and one of those cute little umbrellas."

Ranma laughed. "Ain't gonna ask if yer old enough ta drink blondie, but an umbrella, really?" Even so, he turned to pull out the ingredients for the drink she had named, putting it together quickly.

"What, got a problem with cute things blue-eyes?" the girl laughed, looking the guy who had replaced the bartender up and down, wondering what his story was. He wasn't dressed like the rest of the workers here; instead of a suit he wore a decent silk shirt with a yin-yang symbol on his shoulder and silk pants. The shirt looked classy, sure, but it wasn't a suit, though it did do wonders for showing off his flat, toned chest and stomach.

He was near her age too, but what had really caught her attention was the way he had moved before taking over the bar. While she sometimes came off as flighty to those who knew her, the blonde-haired young woman was an expert at analyzing body language, and she had seen how the young man moved. He moved like a tiger, all perfect control, light on his feet like the best hand to hand masters, only even more controlled, more fluid than any Yang had personally met.

 _Plus those eyes of his are damn dreamy!_ "Besides, I'm not really here to hang out, not really my scene, least not when I'm alone."

"So what are ya here for?"

Much to his later regret Junior chose that moment to interrupt them. "Yeah, well I'm going to question that! Aren't you a little young to be in here girlie?"

Turning from the hotty behind the bar the blonde girl laughed, staring down Junior without an ounce of fear. "Aren't you a little old to be called Junior?"

"Ouch." Ranma snorted, causing Junior to glare at him and Ranma to shrug. Just then a voice shouted out, "Ranma we got an order for Peking Duck coming in."

Ranma scowled, then nodded, looking at the blond girl and handing her the drink she had ordered, whispering, "Just don't destroy the place until I get back, k'?"

"No promises." The blond girl chirped back with a smirk on her face, ignoring how Ranma had figured out why she was there. She took a nice long sip of her drinking, moaning happily. "Yummy!"

As Ranma entered the kitchen, he stared at the servers, all of whom were regular people rather than gangsters. "Guys, I'm just gonna say you should all take off now. I got a feeling the evening's going to go all explody in a bit."

They looked at him, then behind him out into the main area of the bar as a massive "WHOMP!" made the floor shake and the cutlery rattle. Not being idiots and having worked here for some time, the men and women around Ranma made for the back door.

By the time Ranma was back in the bar area most of the mooks had been sent flying into la-la land, while the twins had just begun to fight blondie. Most of the bar seemed okay, though the Junior shaped hole in the second story's guardrail and the shattered glass behind it showed where Ranma's 'boss' was.

Ranma absentmindedly stuck out a hand to catch Miltia by the back of her dress as she was sent flying by him. "Yeesh, I turn my back for what, less than two minutes and you three do all this?"

Putting the unconscious Miltia down gently Ranma raced forward, blocking an uppercut that would have sent Melanie up to join her boss on the second story. A kick sent blondie flying backward, but she flipped in midair to land on her feet, bouncing in place and grinning at him while Melanie backed off gratefully, holding her side before heading for the exit. No way did she want to be around these two when they went to town.

For her part blondie grinned, eager to see what the guy in front of her could do. "Yeah well, I just wanted answers, it's not my fault your boss took my questioning style the wrong way."

"That's yer story and yer stickin' to it huh?" Ranma laughed, liking this girl already. She had the kind of in your face, take no prisoners attitude he liked, and Ranma was always up for a fight. _Plus I never liked the décor in here either. Though wailing on Miltia and Melanie, yeah, she's gonna pay for that._ "Well whatever, gotta tell ya though, its sort of my job to stop you now."

"Welcome to try blue-eyes!" The blond shouted, launching herself forward. Cute guy or not her blood was up right now, and if she wasn't going to get any information tonight, she sure as hell was going to have a fun fight.

Ranma smirked and met the girl midair, blocking her first blows with his hands, smacking them to either side and launching his own attacks, which the girl blocked, if barely. _Hmm, strengths beyond decent, her style's okay, not great, a mix of boxing styles and Judo, but okay. Too punch-happy, but guess that could be because of her weapons. Not enough to make me break out all the stops, but could still be fun._

As he thought that Ranma was forced to duck a punch from which suddenly shot out what sounded like a shotgun blast by his ear. _Ouch, that sounded like it coulda hurt._ In response a kick caught the blond girl in the chest sending her rocketing up and into the floor of the second story balcony.

She landed, growling and charging forward, throwing punches furiously but failing to connect. "Stay still you little RARRGH!"

"Yeah how about no?" Ranma laughed, catching her arm as she overextended, using it as a springboard to take to the air. The girl grinned and attacked even more furiously, thinking Ranma had made a mistake. But Ranma dodged and used her punches to stay in the air, making it look easy.

It wasn't. Whatever else she may have been, the blonde girl was decently quick, unpredictable, and well trained, mixing in several different boxing styles into one whole which only looked to the layman like a brawler.

She also had a brain, and the second she realized that Ranma was more at home in the air, and furthermore that he was using her own blow's momentum to stay there, she changed tactics. One punch suddenly became a grab, catching Ranma's return blow and pulling him into a gauntlet-covered punch that smashed into his chest with the sound of a shotgun shell going off on impact.

"EEEOUCH!" Ranma bellowed, thrown backwards through one of the bars to smash into the cabinets beyond. He rolled forward into the hole his body had just made, getting out from under the dozens of bottles that his impact had knocked out of their places.

He shook himself then bounded to his feet, just in time to dodge another five punch combo from the blonde, who was unwilling to let up on him. This ended when Ranma tripped her into an elbow blow that took her in the side of the head, allowing him to kick her away a second later. The blonde in turn smashed into and through one of the booths along the dance floor.

Ranma spat to one side, unsurprised to see a little red mixed in with the phlegm. He wasn't using aura of course, that would have just been overkill given his body's natural (or unnatural, depending on who you spoke to) toughness. Ranma still had a bad habit of fighting his opponent at the level he determined them to be rather than going all out, and for the most part it served him well, allowing him to keep his own skill level and a lot of his tricks secret until he needed to use them.

 _But damn that hurt! Think it might've bruised a rib or four. This could be more interestin' than I thought._ "So, I'm Ranma, figure ya should know my name if yer gonna try to rearrange my face and vice versa. You?"

The blonde girl pushed her way out of the rubble of the booth, cracking her neck explosively while her hair began to somehow glow white hot. "Name's Yang Xiao Long stud, remember it, you'll be screaming it soon enough!"

With that she shot forward faster than she had before, her fists and legs a blur. Now that she was closer Ranma saw that Yang's violet eyes had become blood red along with her fiery hair. And the first time he blocked one of her punches Ranma discovered that the girl had become even stronger. _Crap, think she just broke a bone there!_

Refusing to show weakness, Ranma gave as good as he got, landing seven or more punches for every one of Yang's that landed. He dodged as much as he could, knowing now that blocking was perhaps just as bad as not. But as the exchange continued Ranma noticed that Yang's punches were getting stronger. Not a lot, but noticeably to someone like him.

 _Okay, change of tactics._ With that thought Ranma changed his style, something that Yang recognized going by how wide her red eyes got right before she was flipped to smash back-first down onto the floor. She tried to kick out, but Ranma dodged backwards, his hands flashing out to grab her leg, noticing in passing how her skin felt silky smooth to the touch over muscles that felt like steel. Despite these thoughts however Ranma grabbed the girl by the leg and with an "Alley-oop!" Tossed her to the other side of the bar, smashing into the brick wall there with enough force to shatter some of the brick.

Yang growled angrily as she pushed herself off the wall. "Okay studly, no more missus nice gal." With a practiced twitch she pulled out two long strings of shells throwing them into the air either side of her waist. Quickly ejecting the spent cartridges from her gauntlet shotguns, she held them up and the string of cartridges fell into place without further movement.

A mere second later Ranma dodged the first of several shotguns shells, grimacing as they made a mess of the wall and floor all around him. _Well fuck, Junior ain't gonna be happy about this._

As if summoned by Ranma's thoughts, Junior pushed himself to his feet, pulling out a massive cudgel thing and charging at Yang, who had impacted the wall directly below him. "Gah, damn it Ranma you're supposed to stop people from causing damage, not help them do more!"

"What do ya think I'm trying to do?!" Ranma exclaimed rolling now on the floor for a moment while dodging the shotguns blasts from Yang. Yang however took a moment to send a few Junior's way and Ranma leaped to his feet, closing quickly.

He got there just in time to watch Junior get sent flying straight up into the rotating disco ball. Both his erstwhile employer and the ball collapsed, the ball shattering on impact with the ground.

Yang barely had a moment to smirk in victory before a blow that felt like, well, one of her own slammed into her shoulder with a sound of a machine gun going off, throwing her several feet away from where she had been standing over Junior's unconscious form. "OOWWW!"

"Sorry Yang, but like I said, I gotta do my job."

Yang knew that without her aura, that blow would have shattered her shoulder at least, and scowled as she rolled back to her feet, shaking the shoulder lightly. "Oh come on Stud, I just laid out your boss, you sure you can't let me off?"

"Sorry Bad Girl, besides would you want me to at this point?" Ranma said, racing forward to press his attack.

"Nope!" Yang responded gamely, popping the 'p' sound and coming back with a roundhouse kick that forced Ranma to back off slightly. The two of them continued to battle it out, neither of them realizing they had begun to smile. They even began to banter, their quips interrupted occasionally by the sound of Yang's shotgun gauntlets going off or the sound of fists thumping against one another.

"So, ya do this often, show up out of the blue at a bar, kick the crap out of all and sundry then ride off inta the sunset? It would go with yer whole cowgirl outfit."

"Not often, and only if the bar owner doubles as a gang leader! Don't know why he took it so badly, he should have Hunter's Insurance this close to Beacon."

"Yeah, but I doubt they have an angry blonde clause."

"Well they should, and don't diss the hair, my hair is gorgeous!"

"Ain't an expert but I can see that, it's got the whole wild mane thing going."

"See? My hairs one of my sexy points, among many I admit."

"All that and yer modest too huh?"

"Oh please studly, I saw you looking down my shirt a second ago, no need to hide it."

"I was standing on the wall! Besides, the way you dress you can't complain."

"I knew you liked it! And I don't need fashion tips from someone who stepped out of a Jade Chung movie!"

At this point Yang again went for a grapple, only this time she tried to get Ranma around the middle with a bear hug. Maneuvering him until they were fighting beneath the second story balcony, she faked with a low kick hoping he'd jump into the air. When her arms shot forward however, Ranma grabbed them both with his own.

Even so Yang pulled him out of the air, trying to use this against him, only to lose her footing when a kick caught her on the knee. Grabbing Ranma's forearms when he tried to let go, she pulled Ranma down with her, and they ended up rolling on the ground. Even so their banter continued. "God I knew ya were aggressive Bad Girl, but should I be shouting about bad touches right now?"

Yang growled smacking her forehead into Ranma's nose as she tried to pull her arms out of his grip. "Please, as if you wouldn't love every minute of it! Or is that just a knife in your pocket?"

With a wrench Ranma threw Yang to one side, rolling away in the other direction. A faint blush was on his face, before he quickly reached down to rearrange himself slightly, somewhat ashamed of how his self-control had failed him there.

Rolling with the throw, Yang turned to him smirking as she noticed the hint of red spread across Ranma's cheeks. "Hah, I knew it!"

Then she had to dodge a thrown table and the battle continued. Eventually however, using a mix of Amiguriken speed punches, his ability to dodge and his throws Ranma slowly overwhelmed Yang's ability to change the damage she took into strength and durability.

Her aura dipped past the point where it could power her Semblance when she was flung through the back wall of the club, her hair flickering before turning back to normal. She woozily pushed to her feet, staring hard at Ranma who had just pushed his way through the hole her body had made. Even so she still rushed forward.

Ranma redirected her blow with ease, and almost gently chopped at the side of her neck. Even as she collapsed, Yang was smirking wildly at him, her violet eyes locked on Ranma's blue ones as they closed.

Catching her around the waist, Ranma shook his head, blushing heavily as he felt the girl's large chest squish against his own. Idly he noticed her lips weren't bruised from their fight, and he was struck by the fact they looked very… very soft…

He shook his head, dispelling such thoughts with difficulty. "Sorry Bad Girl, but you lose this time." Chuckling quietly he looked back into the interior of the club. "If it's any consolation, I think my boss's gonna roast my balls for this anyway."

Looking down at the blonde girl Ranma wondered idly what to do with her. Of course he wasn't about to just leave her here. This area of the town might not be crime central, but even so…

His thoughts were interrupted by a young female voice speaking up from behind him. "Yang?"

Turning Ranma saw a young girl, maybe a few years younger than him or Yang, standing near to the entrance of the alleyway. She wore a black skirt under a long red cloak complete with hood, which was pushed back at the moment to reveal dark black hair with red highlights. She looked confused for a moment, but that was fading quickly, her silver eyes hardening as she took a look at the two older teens.

Ranma smiled at the younger girl, waving his free hand even as he gently cradled Yang's body against his own with his other, trying hard not to let his hand wander from the small of his back. "Hey, yer friend got inta a bit of a fight with the owners of this place, and then the two of us had to go a few rounds. Good thing for me ya showed up really, I was just wondering what to do with her. Ya got anyway to get the two of you home?"

The younger girl scowled, one hand still reaching behind her under her long red cloak. "That sounds like my sister, but losing doesn't. What did you do?"

"Sister? Huh…" Ranma moved toward the girl, leaning down to look at her face, and the girl glared back, pulling out some kind of large rectangle with a hilt of some kind sticking out one side. "You kind of look alike in the face I guess, wouldn't have been able to tell otherwise."

With that Ranma leaned back, smirking as he rubbed the younger girl's head with his free hand. "As to what I did to her, we fought, I won, simple as that. Now, do ya have any way of getting the two of you home? I don't think she'll be waking up anytime soon, we really did a number on one another."

Looking closer, the younger girl noticed that Ranma seemed badly battered around the edges. He walked with a noticeable limp, one side of his face was bruised (which she had just seen from rather too close for her comfort) and his hands were noticeably bleeding from further bruises. Seeing this, and noticing her sister didn't look all that worse for wear, she decided to let it slide, thinking that he must have won by luck somehow.

With a sigh she put her weapon away, locking it in place under her cloak. "I'm Ruby Rose and yes, Yang's my sister. She was supposed to drive us back to the hotel room we rented for the week, but as it is we'll have to walk back, and that's going to be a pain and a half!"

"Drive, drive what?"

In response to Ranma's question Ruby pointed toward the street in front of the club's main entrance. Moving out of the alleyway Ranma saw she was pointing at a sleek motorcycle which painted black, yellow and a sort of reddish orange that frankly was damn cool. "Wow, okay, so **not** leaving that around here. Don't suppose you have a license?"

Ruby answered Ranma with a look that said, 'are you serious?' and Ranma laughed. "Yeah didn't think so. Well I do, so I suppose I could drive the two of ya back. Frankly, I don't think I want to be around here when my boss wakes up from the beating your sister gave him before I stepped in."

While Ranma was stretching the truth a bit there, he felt it was fully justified. The fact he also didn't want to see the twins reactions when they learned that he might've, sort've, been flirting with Yang and vice versa throughout the fight was immaterial.

Ruby however was still looking askance at Ranma. But right now the choice was to either trust this complete stranger or carry her larger, heavier sister back to the hotel they were staying at which was practically on the other side of the city and leave Bumblebee behind. _And if anything happened to that bike…_

She shivered in terror, remembering the time a few kids from Signal had vandalized Yang's bike to get back at her for being undefeated in the combat class. It hadn't been pretty, and being Yang's sister would only protect Ruby from physical harm. Humiliation was another story entirely. _Oh, why couldn't Dad or Uncle Qrow have come to Vale with us? Then this wouldn't've happened!_

At last Ruby nodded, motioning Ranma to set Yang down on the bike's seat. She rummaged in one of Yang's pockets, hidden on the interior of her skirt/belt combo. With the keys to the bike in hand Ruby turned to glare at Ranma. "Alright mister, but no funny business, me and Crescent Rose will be watching you!"

"Scout's honor Little Red, I just want ta get you and yer sister home safe." Again, that this would conveniently remove him from the premises before the twins learned he had been flirting while fighting with Yang was just a bonus. Really.

He set Yang down at the very front of the bike, then moved back over to the doors into the club. "Hey Melanie or whoever the hell's still awake in there, I'm gonna take blondie and her little sister who just showed up to their hotel, I'll be back tomorrow ta help repair the place. Tell Junior sorry it got out of hand, but he's only got himself to blame!"

More than one of the mooks scattered throughout the rubble of the club's interior had recovered consciousness by this point and Ranma turned away to a chorus of curses and shouts from them. Ruby was watching him and the door, a small smirk on her face while Ranma moved back over to the motorcycle before pausing, concentrating and bringing up his aura.

Ignoring Ruby's gasp, he directed his aura to his wounds, healing them between one second and the next. Turning he held out his hand for the keys only to pause, cocking his head. "What?"

Ruby's silver eyes were wide as she stared at him, having felt the **monstrous** amount of aura the man in front of her had. More than she had felt in anyone else, even her uncle Qrow. _Wow, but, wait, why didn't he use his aura before to stop from taking any damage? Is it that he can't or that he chose not to? Weird._ Seeing Ranma still holding his hand out she nodded, placing the keys in his hands, becoming more intrigued than concerned about trusting him at this point.

Hearing a loud yell of 'He was what!?' from the still open double doors Ranma jumped onto the bike, motioning Ruby onto the back as he cradled Yang's body to him with one hand, inserting the keys and revving the bike's engine with the other. "W, well what are we waiting for Little Red, let's go!"

Ruby took another brief glance into the ruined club before deciding she didn't want to know. With that she climbed up onto the back of the bike, putting her arms around Ranma. She absently noted that Ranma's chest and stomach were even tougher feeling than Yang's as she did so, before she put her arms around Yang's body as she lay there boneless, caught between Ranma's chest and the body of her bike. "Let's go!"

Ranma started the engine, and seconds later, the three of them were on their way, the bike's engine rumbling loudly in the darkened streets of Vale. As they went, Ranma asked Ruby, "So, what's Crescent Rose?"

* * *

End Chapter

This is the last of my teaser chapter ideas I wanted to share with everyone, and boy was it a monster. I didn't just want to drop Ranma right into it I wanted him to build up a small history on Remnant before interacting with the other RWBY characters, and I wanted to create a medium to bring in more info on the Grimm. Hope everyone liked it, though I know I did more tell than show than I normally would. Still, given the time-skips, the sheer amount of time I had to cover, and my rush to introduce Ranma to the gang, I had no choice.

And that is the point really. I feel that the best RWBY stories are those that emphasize the character interactions as much or more than the violence. Hence why I rushed to this point. I realize that in that case it might seem that Jaune was somewhat ignored, but I think I showed enough to make his growth, both combat and otherwise, obvious. When he starts interacting with the others, he'll be on an even footing with them.

Let me know what you think about it, because I think I would rather enjoy getting into the world of Remnant, somewhat more than I would like to continue my Oh My story, or Changes to the Food Chain. Aura and ki is much easier to manage than magic, demons, yokai, and multiple small scale bosses. Fewer characters, a more 'realistic' world, and of course Grimm for a nice, easily understood enemy.

Let me also say that whatever this last scene looks like Ranma is not in love with Yang or vice versa. Attracted to yes, he's got a thing for strong girls, but he is no longer the sort of person who would equate like/infatuation of friendship with romantic type love.

If you have a strong feeling one way or another on the pairing, tell me via PM. Other than that, I would love to see everyone's opinion on this, like, dislike, meh, whatever, just please back up your opinions. And if I do take it up full-time, I'd like some help to get the girls interaction with one another correctly.


	4. Chapter 4

I don't own Ranma (Kasumi and Nabiki deserved more air time) or RWBY, just that third season, just why?

* * *

 **Chapter 4 Sudden Meetings and the Ranma Effect**

"…It took me months to get him right, but now his balance is perfect and when I use him, Crescent Rose slices through Grimm so easily! Even with the recoil from the rifle he's great, I can use it to bounce around like you wouldn't believe, it's so cool! But my classmates still think of Crescent Rose as a glorified weed-whacker, grr… I am so looking forward to when we start sparring this year!"

"It sounds interesting, you'll have to show it to me sometime." There was a squeal and a rustling noise, but the male voice went on hastily. "When we're not around civilians who might freak out at a little girl carrying a weapon that's taller than she is, I mean."

There was a low mutter that sounded rather exasperated, but it was the male voice that spoke up next. "I've seen several mecha-form weapons, but while I'm good with my hands, I just can't seem to get how all the pieces are supposed to work and flow together to get the transformation right."

Yang twitched where she lay, the voices gradually calling her back from the darkness of unconsciousness. Waking up to the normal chatter of her little sister would've normally instituted the Glomp Response™ before Yang's mind even came fully online, considering it sounded as if she was within arm's reach. However there were mitigating factors.

First was the male voice responding, a somewhat new yet not entirely unknown voice. It was responding not with scorn or with amusement, but simply good humor, even some respect. Then there was the fact that she could feel the metal of Bumblebee under her chest, the thrum of its engines under her thighs.

There was a moment of confusion caused by this stimuli causing different thoughts to begin smacking around each other inside of her head. First was, _someone else is driving Bumblebee,_ _ **Kill!**_ This thought made her fists clench before she could stop them. Bumblebee was her baby! No one, **no one** , not even her father or druncle Qrow were allowed to touch it. Ruby was allowed to ride on it, but certainly couldn't drive it!

But then there was Ruby's voice, indicating that Ruby was there. This started the normal thought processes that Yang's mind always went through subconsciously hearing her sister's voice when she woke up. _Ruby, sister,_ _ **mine**_ _!_

There was no, or at least not a lot, of possessiveness in that word. It wasn't as if she thought of Ruby as her property or anything like that. It was simply a statement that to Yang, Ruby was a singular individual: the only sister she had of course, but above that the most important person in Yang's life. Ruby had been important to her before Yang found out the truth about her mother and the disaster her stupidity nearly caused, and had only gotten more so since.

These thoughts were followed by, _I recognize that male voice, isn't that the guy who..._ That thought juddered to a halt, replaced by two others. The first was, _I got beat. He took my best shots, took on my semblance at full power, outlasted me, and did it without any kind of semblance or weapon I could see. That's damned impressive._

This thought was followed by _wow that is one heck of a six-pack I'm feeling against my back._ While Yang's front was lying down on Bumblebee, her back was being pressed down by Ranma's chest where he leaned forward driving Bumblebee and she could feel every twitch of his muscles as he drove the bike. _Wow._

By this point Yang 2.0 was fully back online, and Yang finally decided, _All right, it's a little early but I suppose I can see if he can pass the 'Ruby Test'. If Ruby gets along with him, mama just might have found someone who's real boyfriend material. And if he tries anything with Ruby, I have a last round in Ember Celica anyway._ Yang always retained at least one round in her mecha-form shotgun gauntlets in reserve just in case. There had been several situations in the past few years when that had proven to be a good idea.

Yang had dated a time or two, or more than a time or two if she was honest, but never anything serious. Despite the way she dressed and sometimes acted, Yang was still a virgin and the reason was that none of the boys back on Patch could pass the Ruby Test. There was zero chance of her ever going out with someone who couldn't be friends with Ruby. _Besides, just because I'm playing possum doesn't mean I can't have some fun._

Above Yang Ranma twitched, having noticed the shifting Yang was doing, and now feeling her rear move gently against his crotch. He manfully tried to repress his physical reaction to it, and wondered if she was awake now. Thankfully at that moment Bumblebee came to another red light and Ranma straightened quickly, pulling away from where Yang was laid out on top of the bike between him and the handles. "And here we come to another red light. This is why I don't like using cars and things."

"I know! Why they can't just let you run along on the streets, especially if you're as fast as the cars are, is beyond me. It's not as if I wouldn't obey stop signs after all." Ruby pouted.

Ranma chuckled, leaning his head back lightly to stare with one eye back behind his shoulder at Ruby, who had her arms both around him and around her sister, holding her against the bike so she wouldn't slip off, not that it was needed really. She'd just finished talking for about 15 minutes nonstop about her weapon, a mecha-form scythe and sniper combination, something he'd never heard of before. The combination, not the weapons.

It was obvious Ruby was an expert at such weapons, and it was actually pretty impressive in one so young. It never occurred to Ranma that most people would have thought a young girl being so interested in weapons and more importantly using a masculine pronoun when talking about her personal weapon was unusual.

"Meh, I usually take to the rooftops myself, straight lines are always faster than following the roads. But you said you and your sister are staying at a hotel? Where are you from originally, and why are you here in Vale?"

"Don't you know?" Ruby asked, having assumed he was either a Hunter or a Beacon student if he could beat Yang. "Beacon's school year start's the day after tomorrow. Yang was accepted weeks back and we came into Vale early to celebrate for a few days. There's just so much stuff to do and see here that there isn't on Patch! I wanted us to spend as much time together as we could before she had to go to Beacon and I had to head back to Signal. But a few of my friends were in town, and they wanted to hang out today, so Yang went off by herself. But she was supposed to pick me up, and I only found her and Bumblebee by tracing her scroll."

"So you weren't supposed to do anything tonight?"

"We were, that's the point!" Ruby said scowling and throwing her arms out to either side and waving them frantically. "We were supposed to go out for pizza! The pizza on Patch is **awful**! There's something in the tomato's or something we grow on the island, the taste is just **weird**! I was **so** looking forward to a real Vale pizza, and my friends offered but I turned them down so me and Yang could do it, but now it's not going to happen!"

"Why not?" Ranma asked with a shrug. "She's still got her money on her, leastways I don't think she spent any of it at Hei Days. Is there a pizza place by your hotel?"

"Yep, a pretty good one apparently." Ruby nodded.

"Well then, when we get there if your sister's still out of it you can go through her pockets. And since your sister probably put me two or three weeks back in paying off my debt to Junior, I think she owes me a pizza anyway."

In front of him Yang twitched again, it took all of her control not to break out from her supposed sleep to give Ranma a piece of her mind about that one. But Ruby simply giggled, nodding her head as the bike got going again. For a moment the two were silent, Ruby allowing Ranma to concentrate on driving while she simply enjoyed the trip, dreaming about how good the pizza would taste when they got it.

They soon stopped at another red light, and since she began to recognize the area, Ruby told Ranma the address for their hotel. At another red light, Ranma leaned back to knock his head lightly against the top of Ruby's. "So your sister got into Beacon, I hear that's a big deal."

Ruby nodded widely with a big smile on her face, most of her earlier wariness about Ranma gone now. Being around Ranma, despite her initial impression of him, was like being around the sun. He just seemed to radiate a kind of gentle power, almost like Yang but far friendlier or maybe better controlled? Yang was a bonfire, warm and protective but you had to be careful around it because the fire could burn you if you weren't careful. Ranma was like the sun on a spring day, bright with promise, and the only way you could hurt yourself was a sunburn.

That, and he liked her description of Crescent Rose. That automatically made him a good person in her book.

"Yep." she chirped. "Yang's awesome like that. She was undefeated at Signal and got in on her combat abilities despite her classroom scores not being the best. That's why I was so surprised to find that you beat her. Are you sure you didn't use some kind of trick or something?"

"Just my fists, feet and head Little Red." Ranma said with a laugh. "Your sister's good, and that semblance of hers is damn tricky but it can be done if her opponent realizes what's going on quickly enough and is also mobile enough to dodge the damage she can deal out."

"Yep my sisters awesome." Ruby said with a smile and a nod. "She's also a great cook too. I could wish she didn't tease me so much but she's still the best."

Hearing her sweet little sister talk about her like that broke Yang's self-control and she popped up pushing her upper body up from Bumblebee's chassis. She turned around quickly throwing her arms around Ranma and Ruby pulling Ruby up into a hug, nuzzling against the younger girl's cheek over Ranma's shoulder. "Awww, I love you too sis!"

"Yang how long were you awake?!" Ruby yelled, frantically waving her arms cutely to either side, unable to escape her sister's hug even with a shield between them.

His head stuck between hers and Ruby's chests Ranma swerved blindly to the side of the road quickly, nearly running into a streetlight as he tried to get them out of the traffic. Once the bike slid to a stop Ranma's hand's flew up, smacking Yang on the back, tapping out. _Can't breathe, blessed Amaterasu she's as chesty as Shampoo!_

"Only for a little while." Yang chirped, moving back after a moment. She looked down at Ranma. "You said something about pizza?"

Ranma rolled his eyes, breathing in deeply. "Yeah, whatever Bad Girl but you can drive now."

"Hmm, Bad Girl huh, well can't say I didn't earn it, and it's got all kinds of interesting possibilities..." Yang mused, turning around to take over driving her baby, smirking as she thrust her rump back against Ranma's crotch.

Her smirk widened when, instead of pulling away, he put his arms around her waist, pressing his waist back against her for a moment. Then he pulled away, and she could almost feel the heat of his blush. _Heh, so he wants to play, but doesn't know how. Makes it even more interesting. And he's been doing well with Ruby so far..._

Thankfully by this point they were five minutes from the pizza joint by the hotel, and Yang was he able to steer them into the parking lot within a few moments. Once she parked, Yang reached into her pocket, which was part of her skirt, and pulled out her wallet. "Why don't you head inside Ruby, get us a booth somewhere and a menu. We'll follow you in a minute."

Ruby took the money, looking between the two older teens for a moment then nodded and raced inside, leaving small rose petals in the air behind her. "Interesting trick." Ranma said, reaching for one of them only to watch it dissipate as he touched it. Then he turned back to Yang smirking little. "So, did I pass the test?"

"You knew I was awake?" Yang asked, cocking her hips and leaning back against Bumblebee slightly throwing out her chest just enough to be noticed, only to notice that Ranma didn't look down at them, concentrating on her face. _Another point in his favor._

"I noticed you twitch when you began to wake up, then I heard you cocking that weapon of yours. Ruby says you call it Ember Celica?"

"Yep. If you had tried anything with Ruby or with me you would've gotten a fire-Dust infused shotgun round where it'd hurt the most!"

Ranma cocked his head thoughtfully looking at her. "Which of those were ya most worried about?"

"Messing with my sister." Yang smirked grimly. "After throwing down with you in Hei Days I figure I owe you at least a little feel if you wanted one, and you came off as a gentleman anyway. But Ruby **is** my little sister."

"Understood," Ranma said with a laugh then he sobered. "Why the hell did you start that fight anyway? I mean I was bored out of my gourd so at the time I figured it was fun and games. But you really did set me back a lot if Junior blames me for what happened."

Yang frowned, looking away and playing with her hair for a moment. "I was looking for information. Junior claimed he didn't know anything, and then got uppity about how I asked. He called in those gangsters of his, and it sort of escalated from there."

What Yang didn't say was how Junior had demanded she pay for any information whereupon she in turn had grabbed his balls. Yang knew things were going south by that point, but a side effect of her semblance, Dragon's Fury (or so she and her father called it) was that it made her get angry way too quickly. And once she was, it became very hard to think straight. She'd taken numerous classes to try and control it, but Yang still had issues with being a little too aggressive and eager to fight.

"I'm not angry that you fought Melanie and Miltia, they're bouncers and fighting like that is part of their job. But if you wanted information, you should of brought money in the first place. You didn't have to wreck the club."

"I'm a Huntress in training, that's a full-time job that doesn't pay! How could I make any money to pay off an information broker, especially for information he might not have had in the first place?" Yang objected. "And whatever you might think, there are some thing's I won't do."

"I can understand that. But you're still going to have to write out an apology to 'em. You wrecked the place, you have to apologize, them's the rules." Ranma said.

"Since when?" Yang asked with a laugh but she still nodded her head. "But fine, I'll write one up tomorrow morning."

The two of them looked at one another in silence for a moment, wondering where to take the conversation. Yang wasn't normally one to hesitate, but given the circumstances, she just didn't know where to start. Before she could decide, Ranma asked, "What kinda info were you looking for anyway?"

Yang licked her lips, looking away nervously and Ranma had to stop himself from staring at where her tongue was gently running over her lips and teeth. For some reason that was one of the most arousing things he'd seen in a long time. After a moment she answered hesitantly. Pulling out a picture Yang held it out to Ranma. "I was looking for information on this woman."

Ranma looked down at it and then cocked his head in surprise. "Huh…"

Yang swiftly grabbed his shoulders, her violet eyes locking on his like a gun turret. "There was a lot of meaning behind that 'huh'! Do you recognize her!?"

"Well no, not exactly." Ranma said tugging at his pigtail and staring at the picture then up at Yang. "Who is she to you anyway?"

Yang's let go of him, her fists clenched and for a moment she thought about simply beating the information out of Ranma, not really wishing to share more of her personal quest with this almost-complete stranger. But even in her sudden anger, her Semblance did not spark back into life, causing her to mentally shake her head. _Yeah, like throwing down with Ranma again will do me any good. I'm almost out of ammo, I'm out of aura, and he_ …

Her eyes suddenly narrowed. _He's healed himself!_ Yang hadn't noticed that before this moment, but all the injuries Ranma had sustained during their battle were gone now. That was a major blow to her ego.

Not that it was actually the biggest blow her ego would have taken if she knew the truth: that Ranma had handled her from the very beginning with the equivalent of kid gloves. He didn't use any of his ki either on offense or defense, and instead of simply overpowering Yang in terms of speed or strength he merely matched her. He didn't use his shield, and only once did he use any of his special techniques. Ranma beat Yang while pretty much coasting in neutral.

Thankfully for the peace and quiet of the city Yang didn't know that, and she shook the implication of his healing ability off quickly. _Think about that later, right now you have to make a decision._

And when she made it, Yang came to the same decision that Ruby had earlier. Whatever his first impressions might've been, and honestly they were better in Yang's case than in Ruby's, there was something about Ranma that said you could trust him. "She's, she's my mother. She, she left me with my dad after I was born. Took me forever to realize that Summer, Ruby's mom, wasn't mine too. Then the questions kind of piled up."

"I just, I just want answers, I want to know **WHY**!" Yang wrapped her arms around her chest gritting her teeth to keep any more words from getting out. There were so many little questions wrapped up in that one word, but she couldn't let them escape, not here, not now.

Ranma was silent for a moment, then moved forward, putting an arm around Yang's shoulders and leading her towards the pizzeria. "I can understand that, I sometimes wonder who my mom was too. My Oyaji was the one who trained me, he was excellent at it, insane, but excellent at training me. But he never told me anything about my mom. I remember asking when I was younger about it and he'd just pile on more exercises until I was too tired ta ask. Eventually I just stopped."

"As to where I recognize your mother, I met this old woman, well-n-hell out in the Grimm lands. Don't ask me why she was there, that's not my secret to tell."

Yang nodded, hanging on his every word and walking as slowly as she could towards the pizzeria. She could now see Ruby sitting in a booth facing the windows, waving her hands frantically and miming eating something at the two of them. "Please, just tell me what you can."

Yang hated the fact that her voice sounded so needy but Ranma didn't make any note of it, simply responding quickly. "There was a picture there with your mother in it with the old lady. I asked about it once, she said the woman was a friend, that they shared similar ideas, and that she was 'transportation', don't know what that last one could mean. I'm sorry, that's all I can tell you. That and the name, the old lady said it was Raven?"

"That's her, Raven Branwen." Yang said with a nod, feeling a shiver go through her at even this little bit of information, the first she'd gotten in years of searching every chance she could. "I took my dad's name of course. Ruby kept her mom's. Was there anything else, anything at all?"

"The old lady was in a sort of, I guess ya could call it a self-imposed exile and you'd be really close to the mark. Worse she had enemies. She was careful about not giving out information even to me and I lived with her for more than a year before she passed away. Sorry."

"That's more than I've ever gotten before even from her brother my druncle Qrow!" Yang laughed, pushing Ranma away lightly as they entered the pizzeria. She smirked suddenly, intent on moving past the serious discussion quickly. "It makes the blow to my pride losing to you mean something. Although, feeling up that 'dagger' of yours when we were rolling on the ground in the club was almost payment enough."

She left Ranma standing there blushing up a storm as she moved over to sit next to her sister, throwing arm around her shoulder and pulling her into a hug causing the younger girl to go "Yaaaang!" in a whiny tone of voice. But she didn't move away, and instead hugged the older girl back.

Yang released her after a second, and the younger girl grinned. "I already ordered for us, pepperoni, sausage and peppers pizza, chicken wings, and French fries. Is that okay?"

"Fine by me, i don't normally eat fatty foods, but once in a while they're good." Ranma said sitting down across from them, pausing as a loud growl echoed from his stomach. It was so loud that several other people in the packed pizzeria turned and stared, wondering if someone had let in a wild animal. Ranma sighed and patted his stomach. "Don't worry master, your tribute will arrive soon!"

Yang and Ruby laughed, and Ranma grinned at them while the other patrons smiled and went back to their own meals. From there the trio fell into an easy conversation, with Yang and Ruby talking about their weapons and training. Ranma in turn talked about weapons he had used in the past, but didn't give any real context, something which Yang noticed but which went right over Ruby's head.

Then they went into details about their individual training, and more importantly some of the mishaps that had occurred to them. Ranma had them in gales of laughter at some of the ideas his old man had tried, though he did leave out some of the scarier ones.

He had to modify some of those stories of course. He replaced having to carry his old man on a sofa from a pack of wolves to beowolves, went into detail on a lot of the spars, but nothing about the area they happened in. He also mentioned some meditation while looking at Yang who pouted looking away irritably, causing Ruby to giggle.

In short Ranma found he was having fun, more so with these two than he did with Melanie or Miltia. They were interesting, funny, and adventurous, without the hardened, spiky edge that the twins had. There was an innocence to Ruby he liked, almost like Miltia's. But Miltia for all that she was a good girl was a worldly one. Ruby certainly wasn't. She was awkward and childish, letting Yang you do most of the talking except about their training and their weapons, where she proved to be an expert. And he deeply respected her reasons for becoming a huntress, feeling her determination to help people was something almost akin to his own Code.

In contrast Yang was hilarious, outgoing and brash, without the darker, more arrogant and demanding feel that Melanie had. Melanie was brash when it suited her, a sort of calculating sort of attitude, but there was always the sense of her looking down her nose at you. There was no such calculation in Yang. She wore her emotions on her sleeves for all to see, demanding the word take her as she was. Her puns were also rather funny, though Ruby's reaction when he actually laughed at one had been hilarious in and of itself.

"You know," he said after one lengthy diatribe about weapon types from Ruby that Yang had allowed to actually go on for a while rather than interrupt. "The only weapon I've got to my name these days is a shield, and I've always wondered about how to incorporate guns into my style. Maybe something that could use the shield as some kind of container?"

"Oohh I could help you with that." Ruby exclaimed bouncing in her seat happily at the idea of a new project. "Think about what you want, then we could work on it, or I could give you some ideas and we could go from there?"

"Let me think about it for a bit, my budget ain't exactly…" Ranma paused then shrugged. "I don't actually have practically any money to spend really, so it would just have to be ideas for now."

"But that's the best part! Well the best part until you can actually start working on it, getting your hands dirty, seeing if the parts work together as well in real life as they did in your head…"

At this point Yang put a hand over her sister's mouth. "That's enough about weapons for one day." She glared across at Ranma and mouthed the words 'don't encourage her'. Honestly her sister was awkward enough about weapons and interacting with other people, she didn't want her going down that road further.

At that point the pizza arrived along with the buffalo wings and french fries. Yang reached for the buffalo wings, while Ruby and Ranma both reached for the pizza, faster than most people could have followed. Their hands smacked into one another right above the same slice of pizza, and their eyes narrowed across the table.

"Are you challenging me Little Rose?" Ranma asked, smirking. "Realize you face Ranma, master of Food-fu!"

Ruby growled, and moved her hand to another slice picking it up quickly. "Challenge accepted."

 **OOOOOOO**

About an hour and a half later Ranma found himself carrying Ruby on his back towards the hotel set across the street from the pizzeria. Ruby moaned, lulling her head from side to side. "Ugh…shouldn't've had those last few wings…"

"You've only yourself to blame." Ranma laughed. He still had no idea how their battle over the food had segued into an eating contest, but Ruby had paid for her temerity in challenging a Saotome to an eating contest. "No mere mortal stomach can keep up with The Pit™!"

"I have a rumbling in my tummy." Ruby groaned, laying her head against the back of Ranma's neck slightly. She decided somewhere during this meal that she liked Ranma. He really was like Yang in a lot of ways, open, friendly, honest, teasing slightly but not nearly as much is Yang did, and he didn't tease her about her height like Yang did either.

Though, a lot of the conversation between him and Yang went right over her head at times. Why Ranma had nearly choked when Yang had grabbed his piece of pizza and said that his 'meat tasted so good' was beyond her. And how the heck a debate on thigh guards had segued into thigh muscles in which Ranma had blushed up a storm was something she really didn't want to understand.

"Just wait a bit Ruby, we're nearly into the hotel, then Yang can take you to bed."

"No," Ruby groaned. "Don't wanna go to bed!"

"Well you can lay down somewhere anyway. Maybe watch that new Jade Chung movie that you and Yang were going on about. Don't see the point to them unless ya see 'em for their humor myself, I usually watch to make fun of them and throw popcorn at the screen."

"That, urp, sounds like fun, ugh..." Ruby said, groaning again as her stomach reminded her once more that she had overfed it. "Erg, where did you put it all! You had at least two slices, more fries, and more wings than Yang and I did."

"I told you its The Pit™! It's where food goes to die ignobly disappearing into the void forever." Ruby laughed, then groaned again, before nuzzling deeper into his back.

Ranma reached forward and was about to push the door to the hotel open when an impressively redheaded young woman that had just entered the hotel saw them coming and moved quickly to do that very thing for him. Ranma stared at her, for a moment, his eyes somewhat wide.

She was a very statuesque redhead, her hair tied into a long ponytail that ell to below her rear. A little taller than Yang she was equal to Ranma's own height, dressed in formfitting armor that looked vaguely Greek to Ranma, something like the Greek hoplites were supposed to wear, minus the weapons at the moment.

The top layer was a strapless top split with some bronze patterns and small, round embroidery on the sides with a bronze V-neck and brown cut-off sleeves, the movement of which indicated it was made of something like Kevlar, with heavier plates in places. Around her waist she wore a miniskirt with a red ankle-length drapery rustling behind her, and her legs were encased in bronze-colored greaves from the foot up to mid thigh.

But it wasn't any of that which made Ranma stare at her. No, his astonishment was caused by the color of her hair, which was as red as his sister's, a color he wouldn't have thought was possible in nature.

"Um, is she alright?" The redhead asked looking at Ruby, sighing faintly and trying not to show she had noticed Ranma's staring.

Shaking his head Ranma laughed coming out of his stupor. "Sorry fer starin' like that, it's just I never thought I'd see anyone else with the same hair color as my sister. As fer Little Red Riding Hood, she just had too much to eat that's all."

"Tried to keep up with the beast," Ruby moaned. "Fear the beast!"

"Oh, well that's good." The redhead said, speaking of more than just Ruby's predicament, though neither of her listeners realized it. "Um, I haven't met anyone else with my hair color either. Does your sister really have this color?"

"Yep, though I don't know as you could say she came by it naturally." Ranma laughed at the inside joke, waving away the girl's confusion, looking around the redhead at the rest of the hotel lobby. Several people were pointing their scrolls at her taking pictures and there were at least a few with professional cameras.

"Don't look now, but ya seem to have hangers on." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a coin flipping it in one hand, easily retaining hold of Ruby's legs where they were around his waist with the other. "Want me ta get rid of them for you?"

The girl looked at him strangely then began to smile slightly. "I don't think so. You… you don't recognize me do you?"

"Should I?" Ranma asked cocking his head. "Are you a newscaster or somethin', sorry I don't really watch TV much. Haven't been back in civilization for very long, and before that TV was the least o' my worries."

"Sorry, urgh" Ruby said looking over his shoulder at the girl. "I'm from Patch, and we don't get a lot of TV either. Most of it's news feeds, some children's cartoons and emergency lines. That's about it. We've got our own TV station though, and we make a lot of shows for ourselves, urp, those can be cool."

"Oh no, don't worry about it." The girl said and now her smile had become somewhat wider. "It's nothing. Nothing important anyway. I don't suppose either of you are going to Beacon are you?" She asked hesitantly

Ranma shook his head while Ruby moaned. "Ohhgg… my sister is. Oh my tummy is really bothering me now!"

"Not five minutes and you're already flirting with some other girl Ranma? I'm hurt." Yang said suddenly appearing behind the redhead, throwing an arm around her shoulders in a familiar manner, something Ranma was beginning to realize was simply Yang's way.

The girl blushed and began to wave her hands frantically trying to come up with words to say she hadn't done anything of the sort, her poise thrown off by Yang's familiarity. But the blonde merely laughed. "Just kidding, so you're a Beacon initiate too?"

The girl smiled and nodded, calming down slightly, though she still looked a little bemused by the other girl's proximity. "I was accepted several months ago. I arrived early to get used to the climate, it's much colder here than in Mistral."

"I can understand that. Me, I'm just hoping the winters here in Vale aren't as bad as on Patch. Getting snowed in four out of every seven days for three months sucks." Yang said with a nod moving forward to take Ruby from Ranma. She hefted Ruby easily in her arms in a bridal carry, smiling as Ruby's head lolled onto her shoulder. "Nice to meet you, but I think I should get this one up to bed or at least near our bathroom just in case."

"And as for you Ranma it's been even nicer meeting you, despite the whole fighting in the club thing. And thanks, y'know, for the info." With that last sentence Yang seemed to lose some of her confidence. Yet the words still came out sounding sincere and her eyes, staring into his, carried a hidden message that she wanted Ranma to keep what they had talked about a secret.

"I should get going too." Ranma said with a sigh, nodding at her. "I need to see if I can get a start on the repairs to the club. I'll expect your apology to be ready by tomorrow Yang."

"Sure, just give me your contact information, and I'll send it to you and you can share it with Junior. It'll probably be better coming through you anyway than me showing up in person." Yang knew in fact that it wouldn't and might well add more fuel to the fire with the twins, who Ranma had mentioned a time or two, but she didn't care either. _Target, lock on! No way am I letting Ranma get away from me that easily._

Ranma of course was oblivious to her inner thoughts and the mental workings of women in general so he held out his scroll. After a moment's rearranging Ruby in her arms Yang did the same, and the two scrolls exchanged their information automatically. With that Ranma nodded at her, said "I'll see you around," and walked out of the hotel before leaping up onto a nearby rooftop and away out of sight.

Yang winked at the redhead, who blinked for a moment then got it and giggled. "That was very smooth."

"I thought so. I'm Yang, by the way, and you are?"

"Pyrrha Nikos." the redhead nodded with a smile, holding out her hand, a hidden hope in her eyes.

She watched Yang for any hint of recognition, something Yang didn't notice, simply pumping the other girl's hand vigorously. "Well then I'll see you at Beacon, but like I said I need to get this one up to our room. See you around." With that the blonde carrying the girl in the red hood moved off, leaving Pyrrha to smile happily.

Around her the paparazzi that continually followed and hounded her every move muttered to one another about how rude all three teens had been to talk like that to the 'Invincible Girl'. Pyrrha however couldn't have cared less, indeed she had loved it. For once in her life someone had treated her like a normal person.

 _Well that was interesting, and very normal too, a good sign for my coming here to Beacon and school doesn't even start for another three days! I wonder what that apology thing was about though. And that young man, his name was Ranma? He was rather cute…_

 **OOOOOOO**

Not knowing the good impression he had somehow left behind in the redhead's mind Ranma raced off back to the club. He found that the front door was cordoned off by yellow tape. Inside Junior stood with an older man in the center of the dance room, pointing out the damages. When Ranma entered, ducking underneath the yellow tape, both men turned and Junior growled at him. "You! Do you know how much damage you and that blonde bitch did?!"

"Hey!" Ranma said pointing a finger at him. "It wasn't my fault that Yang came into your club, and she ain't a bitch! Don't throw words like that around about any woman in front o' me. Besides, if you had just let me talk to her when she first came in and didn't interrupt askin' 'bout her age, I could've given her some information and she could've walked out o' here without anyone getting hurt."

Junior's eyes narrowed angrily. "This is my club and I'll question whoever I like. Besides she was 17, I could get into a lot of trouble if minors think they can come in here and party."

"Oh please, as if you haven't already bought off most of the police in the city."

Junior growled, looking over at the other man who shrugged his shoulders and moved out of earshot. "In any event fixing the damage that you and that blonde... girl... caused are going to set you back four months."

"What if I tell you that I could fix most of the damage myself?" Ranma asked with a grin, deciding not to make an issue of the word Junior had almost used again. "Martial arts can be turned to a lot of things most people wouldn't think they could. And one of them's construction."

"Prove it." Junior scoffed, waving his hand at the damage.

Instead of taking offense Ranma merely nodded and moved over to a few damaged floorboards, blown apart by Ember Celica's fire-Dust infused shotgun shells. Faster than Junior could follow Ranma had pulled up the damaged floorboards, tossing them to one side and quickly replacing them with undamaged ones, several of which had been brought out of storage, hammering in the nails with the palm of his hand.

A quick coating of floor wax later, and the new floorboards looked as good as the older ones. Junior pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Can you do lighting, fixtures and wiring?"

"Electrical wiring's a lot slower, but yeah" Ranma said with a nod, then smirked. "The only thing I can't do is probably fix that disco ball you destroyed when Yang knocked ya for a loop."

Junior growled, but waved that off. "We've got more of those in storage anyway. But you could hang it?" Right now Junior was seeing dollar signs: Ranma was a godsend if this was the case. Fixing the damage that he and Yang did to the club would've cost Junior a fortune, at least six months' worth of profit from the club, though of course that didn't include his other operations.

"You want me to try to fix the glass?" Ranma asked, gesturing to the piles of glass scattered here and there, most of it having fallen from the second-story balcony overlooking the dance floor set directly in front of the bar.

"You think you could?"

"Maybe, some of it anyway. You'll still need to buy supplies o' course."

"Supplies we can get at a discount price." Junior smirked, waving the five fingers of one hand in the air to indicate how that was the case. "It was the work that would have set me back. How quick do you think you'll be done?"

"If you want I'll take a look around now and give you an estimate of the parts and things I'll need, and it should only take me a day or so I think once I start." Ranma shrugged. "Ya should be able ta open the club next evening like normal."

"Deal kid."

Ranma was true to his word going around and itemizing the supplies he needs that night and returning early the next morning. He went to work immediately, and was practically done by around three o'clock when Junior arrived. Junior looked around his repaired club smiling happily, complimenting Ranma on his work.

About an hour later, Melanie and Miltia arrived, and they immediately moved over to where Ranma was working. "So," Melanie said in a dark dangerous tone. "You looked down the blonde's shirt? You rolled around on the floor with her? You complimented her hair!? So is that your type, big, dumb and blonde?"

"And then you went off with her. Off with her, her bike and her little sister." Miltia said, narrowing her eyes at Ranma. "Care to explain that one, Ranma?"

"Okay first, she's the one the who started ta flirt with me in the fight, I just tried to return fire y'know? As for the rest, Yang was supposed to drive her sister back to their hotel, her sister was 15 and couldn't drive. Was I supposed to just leave Ruby ta carry Yang home and leave her sister's bike behind? It would've been stolen within minutes."

"That doesn't explain why you were so nice to her. She really messed us up, it took our auras the entire night to deal with the damage she did to us." Melanie growled.

"Who's the one who threw the first punch? Who threw the first insult?" Ranma asked stopping his work and turning to the twins, crossing his arms as he stared at the two short girls.

Melanie huffed, but answered. "From what I heard Junior I think insulted her, saying something about paying ahead for the info. She didn't like that, and grabbed him by the nads. Of course he couldn't let that stand and he called in the boys. After they were thrashed, we started to fight her."

"See, here's the thing. Junior had interrupted me and her talkin' by the bar. I could've told her some information about what she wanted and then I think she would've just left quietly. But then Junior goes and insults her, then can't even tell her what she watned ta know, then called in the boys. Ain't sayin' she wasn't at fault, she was, but so was he. She might've been a fool to come here without cash, but he shouldn't have let it escalate."

The girls looked at one another, grumbling. "Still, she didn't have to go full on bitch on us or the club." Melanie muttered.

"I agree." Ranma said, smiling as Miltia and Melanie both looked surprised, though internally Ranma was surprised Miltia hadn't taken her sister to task for use of that word. _Maybe it's different when used between girls?_ "In fact she and I talked about it over pizza, and she admitted that she was wrong to let things go that far. She already wrote an apology, and I shared it with Junior. You can look at it if you want."

Both of them were silent taking this in then Miltia said hesitantly. "Wait, so not only did you escort her and her sister to their hotel, but you actually had a **meal** with them?"

In response to that, Ranma had little to no defense, the fact he was hungry at the time not cutting it with the two girls. Eventually they forced him to agree to come out with them that evening, and he agreed so long as the work on the club was finished by then. It was, and Melanie and Miltia literally dragged him out of the club.

"If you're looking for me to treat you don't bother." Ranma said, sighing as he simply let the two shorter girls drag them along. _What is it with short girls being so aggressive? These two, Benzaiten, and Neo, all of them are so weird._

"I thought you said you went out with pizza with 'Yang'?" Melanie said, making the name a sneer by her tone alone.

"I did, her and Ruby, but Yang was the one who paid for it. And quite a bit more than she expected to." Ranma laughed remembering how Yang had looked when the waiter came with the bill. The look of mixed horror and amusement was really funny.

"How much money do you have?" Melanie asked.

"About 24 lien."

"That should be enough for ice cream then." Miltia said, smiling happily and taking Ranma's arm.

"Why did you…" Ranma sighed then looked up as Neo suddenly appeared on his shoulder smirking down at the two somewhat taller girls.

They both jumped back in shock, staring at her warily. Whatever her smiles or general attitude could fool you into thinking, Neo was one of the most dangerous people the twins had ever met. The two of them knew that they could at least fight Roman, not beat him probably, but fight him. Neo, with her ability to disappear and reappear using illusions or whatever it was she used and her sheer ruthlessness, was someone they didn't want to try their luck against.

"You had to tempt fate didn't ya." Ranma said sighing theatrically. "I don't have enough money to pay for ya to binge out Neo. And I kind of sorta owe these two." _Well, they seem to think I do, and that's enough I guess? Meh, the female mind's a mystery, and it ain't worth arguin'._

Neo frowned, smacking Ranma upside the head hard and then kneeing him in the back before leaping away. She smirked dangerously, flicking out her umbrella. From the end of it, a long dagger appeared. She cocked her head, one eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face, eloquently 'saying' "well if you can't keep up your end of the bargain…"

Ranma smirked right back at her, cracking his knuckles but Melanie and Miltia got in between them, and Melanie spoke up quickly. "Wait a minute, Ranma's right he owes us, and you fighting him won't get you ice cream any quicker Neo. He'll treat us, and the two of us will treat you, how's that?"

"That just brings us even or maybe even puts ya back considering how much ice cream Neo can put away in a single sitting." Ranma frowned thinking, then smirked almost as evilly as Neo for a moment. "Quick question, are there any ice cream vendors who 've ever insulted any o' you?" None of them answered in the affirmative simply looking at him quizzically and he shrugged. "Well in that case, which area of the city would you be least recognizable in?"

"Southside," Miltia replied promptly. "Near the area's police precinct."

"Excellent." Ranma replied, still smirking evilly. "Girls, have you ever heard of the dreaded Mooch Technique?"

 **OOOOOOO**

"Now remember Neo, the trick for someone your size, no offense, is ta come off as naively sexy, or cutely sexy. Choose one and go for it through the entire scam. **Don't** try ta mix it up, you'll only break the effect yer lookin' for. And don't try for straightforward sexy, yer size is really against you there."

As Neo nodded, smiling in a schoolgirl uniform she had gotten from somewhere and licking happily at a triple scoop of chocolate cherry crunch Ranma turned to the twins, who were working on a rocky road explosion and pistachio, both triple servings. "As for you two, if you're together you have to heighten the twin effect, it'll devastate any ice cream seller. If they're male and have a pulse they'll fall for it every time."

Handing her ice cream to her sister Melanie took out her scroll and actually began to jot down notes. "Now you say it only works in smaller places not chain stores, why?"

"Chain stores usually have managers that're more experienced, and they sometimes're able to see right through you whatever you try unless they're old, male and single, and yer normally not that lucky. Also, never go into a store that has any female workers at the time. They'll spot you too."

"What's the most appropriate target age for this trick?"

"Young with pimples is the best, old and overweight second. Old and overweight might be a little tougher ta crack, they might have specific fetishes and that makes things tricky. But young and with their hormones makin' their faces break out if they ever even look at a girl, those are the best ta target."

Melanie finished jotting down those notes, then asked a few more questions about clothing, how much skin they should show, and other things before frowning thoughtfully and pointing it Neo. "You do know what you've done don't you Ranma? This will start an ice cream epidemic! Neo will keep using this trick every time she wants ice cream, which is all the time, and you know how much she can eat! She's going to wipe out whole stores!"

Ranma shrugged. "If they fall for it's their own damn fault, and there'll be stores that it won't work on. There'll still be ice cream for other people in the city, don't worry."

Grinning Neo seemed to shiver suddenly, growing in height and bust line. She leaned forward, showing a deep decolletage, smiling as if to say "Really?"

"Yep even with that." Ranma said looking away and patting her head, frowning as he felt it. It was like glass. _I thought she did those illusion things to cover her movement, so she can create and manipulate glass too? Or is that just an aspect of her illusion powers, or how they work? Interesting semblance she's got I gotta say._ "There'll be places run by women after all."

"And before you try it Neo." He said laughing lightly. "No way could you pull off a man. Women and men simply move differently, it's an obvious sort of thing, and girls have a much harder time movin' like men than vice-versa."

Melanie wrote that down then looked up at him frowning. "Where did you learn this stuff?" Miltia asked, thinking the same thing as her twin. "Did you, did you cross-dress or something when you were younger?"

"Nothing like that." Ranma said waving his hands frantically. He had cross-dressed time or two, or at least you could technically say he had dressed up as a woman, but he had been in his female form at the time. He remembered in particular the strange contest with Tsubasa Kurenai, that weird crossdresser who'd been after Ukyo. There were a few times beyond that of course when he tried to dress as a girl to throw off this or that rival or this or that would-be suitor, but that one was the most impressive. _Strange to think about, but those times_ _ **were**_ _kinda fun. I don't regret losing my female form, but I did love tricking people with it._ "My sister though was a master at it."

"Sister, you have a sister?"

"Haven't I mentioned her before?" Ranma said frowning thoughtfully. "Coulda sworn I had but meh. Yeah, she works over at Beacon, Benzaiten, she's supposedly some witch's apprentice or something?"

All three of the girls stopped eating their ice creams and stared at him. "Ranma, you mean to tell me your sister is Benzaiten the music Summoner?"

"Yeah is she famous or something?" Ranma asked, looking at the three girls in confusion.

"Or something." Miltia said ringing one hand up to her forehead and rubbing it irritably. "Ranma, you really need to look at the news sometimes, or listen to some music."

Neo however was staring at him thoughtfully. Then she quickly finished her ice cream, smiled at all three of them and disappeared behind one of her illusions. Ranma could still sense her vaguely moving away and he wondered what was up with that.

Melanie sighed. "I don't want to deal with this right now. We'll see you later Ranma, we should probably head over to the club. Are you on duty tonight?"

Ranma shook his head. "Junior said that my work on fixing up the club was enough." He grinned. "I think he just doesn't want to admit how much money I saved them despite the trouble with Yang."

Melanie grit her teeth at hearing the blonde's name again, but nodded. "We'll see you tomorrow then."

Ranma watched them go, then turned to look to were Neo disappeared from, frowning thoughtfully as he wondered what had set her off like that. _Something about my sister?_

He shook his head. _I'm going to have to call her at some point, she's not going to be happy when she finds out I've been in Vale for several weeks now and not called her. Let alone me hangin' up on her like I did in Vacuo._

But then he shrugged. "'A problem you can ignore today as a problem solved'," Ranma said to himself, a mantra that his old man had drilled into them, and one he'd used to great effect when his so-called fiancees, suitors and rivals began to show up one after another. Ranma was of course aware that this had also contributed to his problems in Nerima, but being aware of it and changing his thinking to accommodate that knowledge was two different things.

Nonetheless, Ranma now had the evening off, and with quite a bit more energy than he normally would have. _I guess I could go exercise, yeah that sounds like a good idea._ With that in mind Ranma took the rooftops, raising over the cityscape towards one of his favorite parks, a large multipurpose area that had at track running around it, a soccer field, and a basketball court.

 **OOOOOOO**

Roman scowled irritably as he stared down at the map of the city of Vale. It had several marks on it here and there, ranging from 'Cops' in big letters covering the south side area, and 'dumb cops' marked in a larger circle containing more than half the city. There were also four small X's scattered randomly over the city. The sign of his Dust crime wave.

The professional thief nearly spat in disgust at the very idea. No criminal in their right mind would do what Roman was currently doing, which was slowly but surely painting a target on his back. But Roman's current employer wasn't one you could cross, and she had not given him any choice in the matter. She wanted chaos, destruction, people worried, anxious, and both Dust prices rising hugely and the Dust itself. And she was paying for it very well indeed.

 _That, and Cinder's got her hooks in me too damn well. I can't fight her, and she's got too many connections for me and Neo, or even me alone to break away clean._

That last thought was rather galling since Roman had for years felt that he and Neo were the two toughest, most dangerous criminals in the entire country of Vale, not just the city. And then Cinder fucking-Fall had come along, with her ability to control heat and fire to a scale that was utterly terrifying.

 _And she's going to come along on tonight's mission. Wonder what she needs the Dust from tonight's heist for, it's gotta be important to force her to come with me, it's not like it's adding that much time to when she could have taken control it from the warehouse._

It was at this point in his musing that Neo burst in, her hecto-chromatic eyes blazing with purpose as she marched up to him. "Neo, what are you doing, I thought you were heading over to bother the pigtailed punk?"

Neo didn't answer for a moment, pulling out her scroll and typing rapidly, something that made Roman's eyes widen in surprise. Neo never used written words to communicate except in dire circumstances, enjoying the confusion attempting to interpret her pantomimes often forced on people.

After a moment she held up the scroll and Roman read the words she had written there. I was with Ranma yes, but he let something out that I hadn't heard before. He said he had a sister at Beacon, **Benzaiten**!

After reading that Roman looked up at Neo in shock. "You serious? Benzaiten, Goodwitch's almost equally scary little apprentice? But, they, they're so different! Benzaiten's about as personable as a rock by all reports, has an aloof attitude and a short way with law-breakers, while Ranma's a bit of a wild man by all we've seen so far."

That's what he said, but that isn't the most important. You remember that Benzaiten was supposedly a survivor of Semaphore academy over in Vacuo? The one that fell to Grimm a few years back?

"Yes, that's public knowledge." Roman said, frowning. Teachers at Beacon were important figures, and when one of the most famous ones took an apprentice it was big news, and had been for a few months before being replaced by some kind of scandal or other from what he remembered. "Get to the point Neo, you know I have a job tonight. And Cinder's coming along this time, so I need to get a move on."

We've known for a while that Benzaiten's dangerous, almost as dangerous as Goodwitch herself. But there was another student that made some headlines from the fall of Semaphore, one that dropped off the grid right after. What if that student is Ranma? Wouldn't that make sense, two siblings trained well above the norm instead of two unrelated students showing up with that level of skill? And Junior did say he mentioned coming from Semaphore, even though we were careful not to show too much interest in him.

For a moment it didn't register, then it did, and then Roman gaped at her. "You think Ranma's the Azure Warden?"

That was the name the survivors of that disaster had given that student. He wasn't a teacher or a hunter, the civilians and surviving students were clear on that, though none knew or would share his name with the newsies. The rumors were clear about several points however.

One: that he had fought the entire battle, not even resting throughout the whole ordeal. Two: he had been deadly beyond belief, slaughtering Grimm B-class and below like they were rats, while killing A-class like they were at best C regardless of their age. Three: he was literally the last hunter on the field and thus the only reason the last thousand or so civilians escaped alive at all. And four, during those final hours of the evacuation as he defended the landing pad he had glowed a bright, azure blue, hence the name.

But since then nothing had been heard from him, and those stories had slipped into the realm of gossip, then myth. Oh, there were still tales of it, even a short video one of the evacuees had taken while being forced to wait for the next bullhead. but other than that, nothing concrete had reached Roman's ears.

"Still, that is an interesting possibility…" Roman didn't realize he had spoken aloud until Neo began to nod her head violently. "I think, Neo, we might need to come up with a way to see Ranma in action for real. Not against you my dear, but from the side somehow the better to measure his true skill. If he's that good, well I'm alright with following Cinder's orders for now, but you and I both know she's not telling us everything most particularly her long term goal. So maybe your friendship with the young man could be a real asset in the future."

 _And she's fucking scary, too willing to work with terrorists, and I don't like being out in the open like this._ Roman thought, but did not say. It was true though. As a criminal, Roman knew his ability to disappear into the crowd was the most important thing. Up until recently no one but other criminals knew who he was, his victims never connected the flamboyant man in the bowler hat with whatever he had stolen. But Cinder's orders were forcing him out of the shadows, and he didn't like it.

As Neo nodded again, Roman smiled, tipping his hat to her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do the queen's bidding…"

 **OOOOOOO**

Jumping out of the surrounding treetops that line the outer edge of his chosen park, Ranma stopped for a moment then smiled as he moved quickly onto the track circuit along its periphery. "Hey, if it ain't the friendly redhead from last night. I still can't get over the fact that there is someone else with the same hair color is my sister."

The redhead turned as he approached, smiling brightly. "I suppose it is an unusual color. My mother and father were both orange-haired, though why it mixed into such a red with me they don't now. Are you here to run?"

"Run and exercise," Ranma said with a shrug, smirking a little. "Running's just a warm-up after all."

"I quite agree. It's always good to work a little bit of a sweat before you get to the main event. Could I …" The redhead broke off as Ranma quickly knelt to the gravel path, picked up a small pebble, and hurled it towards the bushes directly behind her. She turned rapidly as a curse erupted from that direction.

"I don't care if she's some famous actress or whatever dude, give her some bleepin' privacy!" Ranma yelled.

 _Not,_ Ranma reflected as the girl moved over reaching into the bushes to drag a man out by his ear, _that she's not worth lookin' at._ The redhead was dressed in short track shorts which hugged her body showing off a very decent rear and legs that went on forever. She was also wearing a brown T-shirt which hugged her curves up top as well. The redhead wasn't very busty, not like Benzaiten or Yang who were DD, but she was at least a high B. And while it was obvious she wore a bra Ranma thought that she might not have to, at least not for the support.

She was lean and muscled as well, something Ranma noticed easily. Even more muscled then Yang, her toned stomach somewhat on display. Ranma felt that overall the redhead might be in better shape than the blonde, though it would be close. Yang was built for upper body strength and striking power. The redhead was built for movement, speed and endurance. Even Ranma couldn't help staring at her, his eyes flicking from her hair all the way down those long, perfect legs. _Wow, she's um... really fit..._

Shaking his head of such thoughts Ranma tapped the redhead, who had yet to stop haranguing the man, on the shoulder smiling at her. "I'll see you later then, I guess." The redhead barely had a chance to nod before Ranma turned and raced off, sprinting down the path.

A moment later the girl had finished, and the man had run off, sans his expensive camera, several dozen rolls of film the girl had forced him to give up and his scroll and ID. Stretching for a moment she began her own run, then looked up startled as she heard the young man's voice. "Passing on your left."

That line sounded familiar, and she sped up in turn, saying, "Thank you for spotting that paparazzi by the way, I thought I had an agreement with them about not recording me as I exercise, but there's always someone who doesn't get the memo."

 _I should have sensed him_ , Pyrrha thought to herself, but didn't say aloud. The man had been using a ceramic camera, something she hadn't seen before. _I'm suddenly even more glad that Beacon doesn't allow paparazzi on its property. I know my semblance hasn't gotten out, but if they're getting smart enough to try and figure out ways around my ability to sense them, even if this was just a lucky chance, it's best to get somewhere where they can't get to me._

Smiling at both Ranma and that thought, she went on. "I'm Pyrrha, Pyrrha Nikos. And you're… Ranma, yes? That was the name Yang used last night."

Despite his normal body control Ranma actually stumbled as he ran. Seeing this, Pyrrha frowned thinking that maybe he had heard her name and knew her from that rather than her looks somehow. _Darn it, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up._

However when Ranma spoke it threw those words out of her mind. "Wha, somebody screwed you over from the beginning didn't they? So does that mean you're from Mistral?"

Pyrrha's smile suddenly came back brighter than ever, though her eyes had initially narrowed at Ranma's curse. "Yes I am, you... haven't heard of me?"

"Nope sorry like I said, I don't watch TV much. Does that bother you?"

"No, nothing, like that!" Pyrrha said waving her hands as the two continued to run along the track. "Actually it's exactly the opposite really I… never mind. Why did my name disturbed you then if you haven't heard of it before?"

"Well I know a smattering of Greek, that is the language that common Mistral is based on right?" Ranma and Genma had actually been in Greece at one point, hunting up a martial arts master who had moved there. While Genma tried to convince the older man to teach them, Ranma had joined a few local competitions, and had learned some of the language. He'd even made a few friends among a group of local boys, who enjoyed learning from him in turn as they taught him the language.

"Yes it is, though I haven't met many people that know the ancient form."

"Do you know what your name means?" Ranma asked bluntly.

Pyrrha nodded frowning again, though not for the same reason as before. "Yes, I do."

"So someone really did that to you. That's pretty bad. Pyrrha Nikos, Flame-haired Victory. Or, a more accurate translation of the two word's combined'd be, Pyrrhic Victory. With a last name like that, yer parent's shoulda chosen something to soften the impact, not heighten it. And as fer the translation of the combo..."

Ranma scowled, spitting to one side. "There ain't no such thing as a Pyrrhic victory, just ask the survivors of any such damn thing." Ranma still had nightmares occasionally about the fall of Semaphore, but he had heard some pundits on the news declare it a victory against the Grimm, simply because most of the civilians had gotten away. _Fucking asshole doesn't know what the fuck he's talkin' about._

"I am not certain I can agree with that." Pyrrha said diplomatically, not knowing why Ranma felt so strongly about the idea, but knowing several examples in history that proved his statement false. "Yet my parents **were** rather foolish or perhaps shortsighted when they chose my name. My mother was from Atlas, and she chose it because she felt it sounded nice, and before my father could return from a hunting mission and tell her both meanings of it, my name was in the books."

"Not that they haven't…" she broke off suddenly shaking her head, unwilling to share more than she had already with a practical stranger. "At first I enjoyed some of what my name came to represent, but much it has brought me I could cheerfully leave by the wayside."

Ranma nodded and sped up a little I understand that. "Still, I'm just about done my warm-up so…" and with that he raced on, now sprinting faster than Pyrrha could keep up with for a moment.

She gaped at him, then her competitive nature reared its head and Pyrrha sped up in turn racing after him. Ranma heard her coming along the gravel path, and turned watching in amusement as the girl came up to him, breathing deeper now but still moving her legs strongly, and Ranma surprised himself by having to fight a desire to stare at them. It was evident that she had a lot of endurance, at least as far as normal people went. "Are you really gonna try an' keep up with me?"

"I know that line you said to me earlier, 'passing on your left'? I refuse to be part of that gag!" Pyrrha laughed.

Ranma laughed too. He had indeed gotten that from the movie, called _Captain Atlas_. It was a damn good movie, even though Ranma felt that the main thrust of it, that government control and the military were good things, was really rather pathetically ass-kissing given the situation in Atlas. Nothing at all like the real Captain America, or America in general from his world, where individuality was part of the national culture.

"In that case, I suppose I could make this more interesting." Smirking Ranma reached out and tapped Pyrrha on the shoulder. "Tag, you're it." With that he turned, racing into the trees.

He wondered idly if Pyrrha would follow, but he needn't have. Pyrrha's competitive nature urged her on, breaking her routine to chase down Ranma, a young man who treated her normally, who knew what her name meant, and who was in incredibly good shape.

 _And has a rather decent rear too,_ Pyrrha thought, giggling a little with a faint blush on her face. She wondered what her mother or God forbid her manager's reaction would be if they learned she was a normal girl in at least one important way.

She raced through the trees after Ranma, almost catching him by surprise near the fence of the Park, but he dodged her lunge, leaping up onto a rooftop from a standing start. Pyrrha looked up at him then jumped up in turn, landing on first the iron railing of the park fence, then leaping up grabbing the top of the roof and flipping herself up onto it.

By that point Ranma had moved to another roof, and he waved at her cheerily. "You're still it!"

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed, and she raced after him, leaping the distance between the two rooftops easily. The two raced on with Pyrrha trying to close the gap but never quite succeeding. It was exhilarating, using parkour like this was a thrill and a fun test of her endurance though of course it didn't come close to a good fight.

It went on for several hours until she began to get tired. The moment she began to sweat through her brown colored shirt though, Ranma stopped, holding up his hand. "That's enough I think," he said smiling.

Pyrrha frowned, noticing that Ranma wasn't sweating nearly as much as she was, and wondered if he had some endurance assisting Semblance. "I can still continue." She smirked suddenly. "I'll even give you a bit of a head start since you stopped and tried to call a halt."

"Nah," Ranma laughed at the girl's eagerness to continue the chase. _Or maybe she simply don't like losing, ties into her last name anyway._ "When the adrenaline leaves it'll hit you hard I think. You're in excellent shape Pyrrha, but jumping roofs like that requires a lot more strength in yer leg muscles than you might think right now. You'll be sore as if you lifted weights for the same amount of time, trust me."

"I don't think so, but if you wish." Pyrrha said with a shrug.

"You want me ta lead you back to that park or to the hotel? It's getting a little late." Ranma said, pulling out his scrolling looking at the time before whistling a little. "Huh, I didn't realize we were going for that long. It's pushing 11!"

Pyrrha gasped a little. "I hadn't realized either. Yes, if you can show me the way to my hotel from here I think that's a good idea. How in the world did we race for more than three hours without realizing it?"

After a moment though Pyrrha realized that she was still smiling. None of the tournaments she had been in ever consisted of races like that, and while she ran to keep in shape, she had never run using parkour like that. It had been new and exciting, a rare thing in her life these days.

 _And Ranma's own endurance is phenomenal._ Pyrrha thought. _I wonder what else he does to stay in shape?_ "Can I ask, are you a Hunter? You seem a little old for Beacon, and you said you weren't going there so…"

"Ya could say I'm sort of a Hunter. I've got all the skills of one, but there's a problem with my paperwork, so I can't take any jobs just yet." Ranma said, prevaricating slightly. He led the way over the rooftops, the two of them taking it much slower now.

Pyrrha paused occasionally, realizing that her legs did feel a little sore. Not nearly as much as Ranma had hinted they would though. She was actually in even better shape than Ranma had assumed looking at her, though she didn't realize that.

"So, what exactly are you famous for?" Ranma asked. "Those guys from the lobby yesterday looked as if me, Ruby and Yang should've known who you were, and you got that idiot with the camera following you, and ya said ya liked some of what yer name's come ta mean…"

Pyrrha sighed, but she knew it had to come out eventually and decided to share it on her own terms. "I'm a celebrity in Mistral, and apparently the world over. I've won the regional tournament four years running, and I graduated top of the class from my Academy." She said this while watching Ranma closely, wondering if now he would link those events to her name, still wondering if this dream of being talked to normally would end.

 _Or should I say semi-normally? Ranma doesn't seem all that normal himself._ That thought nearly made Pyrrha giggle looking around the rooftops of Vale for a moment.

"It might be late but congratulations I guess." Ranma said with a shrug. "Winning's nice, but it puts you on the top of the mountain, and I can see how it ties inta yer name on several levels. But once you're at the top, you have to stay there. Yet fighting people ain't necessarily gonna help ya against the higher level Grimm."

"True," Pyrrha said with a nod. "That's partially why I've come to Beacon. Headmaster Ozpin is renowned as one of the greatest Hunters to ever livewhen he was in the field. I hope that the classes can help me grow both as an individual and as a Hunter. I also…" she paused, looking away.

"What?" Ranma asked, cocking his head. He slowed down slightly to allow her to catch up to him before they both leaped off to the next roof, a small three-story house. When she did, he looked at her, a faint, somehow compassionate smile on her face.

"I…" Pyrrha paused staring at Ranma's face, at that smile, thinking it almost seemed like he understood some of what she wanted to say. Normally it would never even occur to her to share her inner thoughts with anyone, let alone someone she had just met, but that smile seemed to slip past all her natural defenses. "I didn't just come here for the classes, I came here to see if i could find some true friends!"

With that it all came out like water from a dam. How she had been put on a pedestal from an early age, always pushed to be the best killing off any chance at a social life early on, or being normal to her peers. How people began to avoid her, either because they thought she had begun to be arrogant, or because they no longer thought they were worth hanging out with her. How no one but those seeking to know Pyrrha Nikos, celebrity and 'Invincible Girl' ever tried to get close to her. How she longed to be treated like a normal girl, but never found anyone who could treat her that way or even understand why she would like it.

There was actually more to it than that, a lot more, most of which tied into what her name had come to mean and her own family and how they had used it and her in turn. But that Pyrrha would not share with anyone willingly. She had borne that weight for years, for so long it seemed second-nature now, and no one could really help her with it.

Ranma listened through it all, not commenting until Pyrrha finished whereupon he simply nodded, and strangely enough actually addressed her unspoken burden and her loneliness. "I can understand where you're coming from. My old man always pushed me to be the best, hell, to **think** I was the best even when I wasn't."

That actually hurt Ranma to admit. _In Nerima I sure wasn't the best, I was good maybe the best of my age, but Cologne and Happosai were both better'n me when they were serious. "_ It can also be real lonely at the top, and I don't think I've ever actually gotten there. Tryin' cost me a lot, hell it took me years ta realize what I was missing, and I still ain't exactly the best at interacting 'normally' with people either. I don't really have any advice ta give ya, except doin' what you've already done, gettin' away from it all."

"And I think it's already paid off. Yang an' Ruby didn't know who you were either. Ruby might not be going to Beacon but Yang is. That gives you a start at makin' new friends at least. And I think with Yang around, you'll gain more friends quickly. She seems to be sort of a life of the party girl y'know? That's about all the help I can give you if ya want to find someone who'll treat ya normally."

"She seemed that way to me too." Pyrrha laughed, remembering the trick that Yang had pulled to get Ranma's contact information, and hoping Ranma was correct about her. But feeling she had given enough away, and worried that Ranma would see he had struck a chord with her even more than he already had, Pyrrha quickly decided to change the subject. "Has she contacted you about that apology by the way, and what was up with that?"

Ranma winced, not commenting on the change of subject and began to move forward once more. "She did, and it was a…misunderstanding between her and my current employer. My employer implied something, an' Yang took exception and it sort of escalated."

"Can I ask, where do you train?" Pyrrha asked as they leaped from that roof onto the next. "You're in incredibly good shape, though I think I'd have to have a match with you to tell more than that."

Ranma smirked. "Eager for someone to knock you off that pedestal of yours? That'd make ya a little more 'normal' at least, wouldn't it?" He asked, not answering her question, something that Pyrrha didn't notice at the moment.

Instead she noticed his tone, the confidence in his face and voice, as if he was certain he could indeed defeat her. And just like his innocent game of tag it aroused her competitive spirit. "Is that a challenge?" Pyrrha asked, smirking herself and getting into his face slightly as Ranma turned to her.

"If you…" Ranma paused as a beeping sound came from his pocket. His normal pocket, not his ki, for some reason scrolls and phones didn't work in ki-space though Ranma had never figured out a way to study the phenomenon. Ranma frowned, thinking this might be Junior calling him in for trouble or something similar but he still pulled his scroll out. "Yes?"

Yang's face appeared on the scroll's screen looking frantic. "Ranma, you're the only one in Vale I know right now and I'm getting desperate! Ruby went out at around six and hasn't come back! We were supposed to meet up for a dinner and a movie and she never showed! She was supposed to be here hours ago, her curfew's at 10, and…"

"Calm down, take a few deep breaths." Ranma interrupted. He watched as Yang scowled but did just that, allowing him to go on. "What was she supposed to be doing?"

"She was getting some ammo for Crescent Rose. She used all of her rounds a few days ago apparently, something I didn't know about until she told me about it this evening." Yang growled a little at that but went on quickly. "We spent most of the day together, then when we got to the hotel she told me about that and went off."

"I headed out on a few errands on my own, and when I got back before her I wasn't worried. Ruby sometimes gets lost in her own world when she goes ammo shopping, especially if the store sells gun magazines. But now its two hours past her curfew and she **still** isn't answering her scroll!"

"Have you called the police, and did she mention what store she was going to?"

"No she didn't, only that she'd seen a flyer advertising a sale. And if anything happened to Ruby the police aren't going to be any help, you heard her she's a beast with Crescent Rose! If someone could take her out, the police sure as heck wouldn't be much help."

Ranma exchanged a glance with Pyrrha, who nodded tapping her chest and Ranma grinned at her. "All right, how about this then: You start from your hotel and move out into the city on Bumblebee. We'll canvas the city from one end to the other and see if we can find her. First person to find a hint of anything that could've possibly involved Ruby or lead to where she is can call the others in. If we can't find anything quick, I'll call Junior and get him and his to help us."

"Wait, others?" Yang asked.

"Hello again," Pyrrha said moving into the pickup behind Ranma. "We were having a bit of a race, but this is much more important, I'll gladly help look for your sister."

"Thanks Pyrrha." said Yang smiling at her. "Always glad to made a new friend, even in weird circumstances like this."

Pyrrha's smile looked as if it was going to burst out of her face. "Me too."

With that Yang cut the connection, and Ranma turned to Pyrrha. "If you have your scroll on you, I'll give you my contact information and Yang's. That way we can all three communicate."

"Do you think she's right, that the police wouldn't be much help?" Pyrrha asked.

"I haven't really been impressed by the police in Vale since I arrived in the city, and Ruby's a Huntress in training. I haven't seen Crescent Rose, but what she told me about it and what Yang said about what she could do with it, yeah I think I believe that."

Pyrrha nodded, and pulled out her scroll from her pocket, blushing as she suddenly realized that she was doing the same thing Yang had done, getting Ranma's contact information. _Although in this case, I suppose it's for a much better reason. Even so this is the first time I've ever given a boy my contact information! Hehe, I wonder what my mother or manager would say about_ _ **that**_ _?_

A few moments later the two of them split up, with Pyrrha leaping down to the road and moving off in one direction and Ranma remaining on the rooftops moving the other away from the hotel the two of them had been heading towards. With no one following him now, Ranma moved far faster than he had been with Pyrrha chasing him. He covered several dozen blocks in as many minutes, moving around in a circle and looking for anything that could be trouble Ruby might have caused or gotten involved in.

He found several instances of policemen pulling over drunks, one bar fight that had gotten out of hand, and after around thirty minutes of searching from the rooftops he saw a dust shop that looked as if it was the scene of a crime. Several policemen were in front talking to an old man, and others were inside looking around and jotting down notes in the wrecked building.

Leaping down from the rooftops Ranma landed nearby, near enough to hear the old man give his account of what had happened. It turned out that Ruby, or some other little girl in a red cloak and what were the chances of that, had interrupteda robbery by someone whose description matched a certain gentleman thief. _If it is Roman, I don't think Ruby'd be able ta match for him if he was serious._

As he listened however it turned out that Roman had simply tried to get away and Ruby chased after them. Then a fight had occurred on the nearby roof including a few huge explosions and that was the last the old man had seen. "Is that young lady all right, she really helped me out, and I'd hate to have to hear that anything happened to her?" The old man asked, as his story ran down to the end.

"She's downtown. We've got a lot of questions for that little lady, though with your testimony at least she won't be charged with anything more then disturbing the peace."

Ranma scowled, not liking the sound of that. _Weren't hunters or hunters-in-training supposed to help out when they saw trouble anyway? Why the heck are they holdin' her?_ With that Ranma raced off, leaping back up to the rooftops, pausing for a moment to look at the damage done to where the fight must have occurred.

It looked as if one explosion had occurred right above the roof at around head height, scorching the rooftop. But there were six or seven man-sized holes in the roof where some massive heat had melted it in perfect circles in an instant, so quickly it looked as if someone had simply punched those holes into the roof without causing any damage to the rest of the roof. _Okay, that's interesting…and sure as hell don't look like anything Neo could've done._

Shaking his head, Ranma left the rooftop, moving around that dust shop in a circle until he found the nearest police station. When he did, he opened up his scroll and called Yang. "Yang, I found out what happened to Ruby."

"What happened! Is she okay?" Yang asked, not opening up the video portion of the scroll for a moment, though Ranma could hear the screech of tires in the background.

"I think so, but she's in the police station right now. They're questioning her about a robbery she stopped. Can you still not contact her on her scroll?"

"No Ranma, I've been trying every few minutes! Why the hell can't I call her if she's alright!?" Yang shouted as she activated the video part of the scroll. Her hair and eyes started to glow with her semblance as he watched, fueled by worry, and though Ranma didn't know it, fear.

"Calm down Yang, I'm not to blame for this. Listen she's at," Ranma then rattled out the address of the police station. "If she can't call ya, there might be something really wrong here. Why would they take her scroll if she wasn't going to be charged with anythin'? Anyway, I'm goin' ta head in and see what I can find out."

"I don't care if they are the police!" Yang growled angrily. "If they're holding my little sister against her will, I'm going to break them just like I did Junior and his mooks!"

She hung up at that, and Ranma shook his head. _If I had a little sister who was being held by the police whatever the reason I'd probably react the same. Still, I hope there's nothing really going on here, or else Yang might find herself in trouble with the law. Whatever she did ta Junior and co. she don't seem the type to be able ta handle that._

Sighing he leaped down to the parking area around the station while at the same time calling Pyrrha telling her that he had found Ruby, and that she had indeed been involved with a crime, but didn't seem to have committed one. "You can probably ask Yang or Ruby if you see them around the hotel for the full story, I'm going to see what I can find out from the police. I'll see you around okay?"

Pyrrha nodded, looking a little disappointed that she hadn't been the one to find out what was going on. "I look forward to hearing the full story. I hope to see you around too, even if you aren't going to Beacon. You still haven't told me were you trained either." She smiled. "I hope to learn more about your training Ranma, and to see if you really are up to the challenge of trying to, as you put it, 'knock me off my mountain'."

Ranma laughed, and nodded. "We'll have to see about that at some point."

After that he hung up and entered the police station. The front desk wasn't manned for some reason, and Ranma moved quickly down into the police station, clinging to the ceiling and moving along it like a gecko for which this technique was named. He saw dozens of policemen throughout the precinct, but no sign of Ruby.

With a mental sigh Ranma headed towards the cells hoping that he wouldn't find Ruby there, but knowing somehow that he would. _She and Yang both seem ta be trouble magnets, just like me. It takes one to know one after all._

Ruby wasn't in a cell at least, but she was in one of the rooms set aside for questioning. _Right, that's strike three!_ Ranma thought grimly.

The first was seemingly arresting Ruby in the first place, the second was taking her scroll. This though, questioning her without any adult present on her side of things, that was against the law as far as Ranma knew. And just damn wrong besides, which Ranma cared a lot more about than the law if he was honest.

He looked through the window set into the doorway, while one hand quickly and quietly broke the lock on the door. Inside Ruby sat across from a man with gray hair and glasses. Opening the door a crack, he watched as the man leaned forward staring into her eyes, and said something about silver eyes.

Ranma shook his head, banging the door open. "I hate to interrupt you going all creepy on underage girls detective but…!"

That was as far as he got before Ranma suddenly felt **something** coming towards him from the side. Looking in that direction he saw a blonde woman with a severe countenance and glasses dressed like a mix between a businesswoman and teacher with a purple and black cape on her back. At the moment her eyes were narrowed angrily behind her glasses and she was swinging what looked like some kind of riding crop at him.

Assuming the riding crop was directing some kind of semblance-based attack Ranma ducked underneath it. At the same instant and faster than most eyes could track he smacked the woman's arm along its trajectory, bringing up his other fist towards her face.

Ruby's shout of "Ranma don't!" stopped him, and he paused his fist a millimeter away from the woman's nose, though as fast as he had moved she had already begun to move back slightly. Behind him, Ranma heard a shattering sort of sound and out of the corner of his eye he saw a large portion of the wall was ripped apart by whatever attack she had launched at him.

"Ruby, who is this?" Ranma said not backing away from the woman, his fist still hovering in face. A face that was now glaring at him, but was in control for all of that. Evidently her attack on him had been an automatic thing. Even so, Ranma could feel something reaching out and trying to take control of his body, trying to push him back. Wincing a little he began to put more power into his limbs, resisting whatever it was, his feet digging into the concrete floor.

"She's a huntress from Beacon, they're both from Beacon actually. That's Professor Goodwitch, and this is Professor Ozpin."

The man so addressed had turned from the table even before the woman had tried to attack Ranma, but was now staring at him from over small wire frame glasses, calmly sipping something from a mug. Now he spoke, his voice smooth and calming, which had no effect on Ranma at the moment. "Do you have some reason to barge in here like this young man? We are only talking to Ms. Rose after all."

"Yeah, talking to her in an interrogation room, without a parent present, and with no scroll on her so she could contact her parent or her sister. A very protective, rather violent sister who's also in the city with her right now." Ranma replied in as snarky a tone as he could manage. The man's poise and confidence was irritating Ranma, as was the fact he was still putting more ki into simply standing there against whatever pressure the woman was trying to use to throw him aside.

"Oh God no… I was supposed to be back at the hotel hours ago." Ruby moaned, her face flopping down into a rather conspicuously empty plate. "Yang's gonna kill me!"

"I don't think it's **your** life that's in danger Ruby." Ranma laughed, at last letting his fist drop from in front of the professor's face. The moment he did, most of the pressure on his body receded, and he gave a small apologetic bow towards the blonde woman, who merely nodded back. The moment she did, the rest of the pressure on him disappeared. Her glare however did not.

Yet the glare slid off Ranma easily. He'd seen far worse after all. "These two might be in danger though. Why were you questioning Ruby anyway?"

The two adults stayed silent for a moment, allowing Ruby to explain first. "Professor Goodwitch saved my life Ranma. I, er, kind of bit off more than I could chew you see, and she came in and rescued me from this really irritating bad guy who had orange hair and…"

"I know about that," Ranma interrupted, waving aside the fact Ruby had fought Roman and his accomplice (not Neo, she didn't work with explosions or fire, the scene of the battle had told him that much) as a mere trifle. Which to his mind at the moment, it was. "I overheard the old man whose shop you helped save talk, but why weren't ya allowed to keep your scroll?"

The professor at the table had been looking at Ranma smiling faintly but now he turned to Glynda. "Glynda?"

Glynda scoffed, her riding crop smacking into her hand angrily. "I certainly didn't order her scroll taken! She should have been allowed to contact her father at the very least. I'll get to the bottom of this."

She paused looking at Ranma. "Are you Ranma Saotome?"

"I am, why?" Ranma asked, suddenly wary.

"I am Glynda Goodwitch, Benzaiten's master. Her description of you was spot on, but you're in Vale and haven't contacted her? She won't be pleased about that. Nor will she be pleased that you interrupted a police investigation, or threatened me." She finished her eyes flashing darkly.

"Funny, I don't see any police in here." Ranma said smirking, cracking his knuckles lightly. He wasn't one to automatically respect authority any longer, and this woman's attitude of superiority was getting up his nose a little. "Especially since I think there's a law about questioning minors, no offense Ruby, without parental consent."

"Indeed it was not a police investigation, we simply had an offer for Ms. Rose based upon tonight's activities. I suppose we could have moved the discussion to more salubrious surroundings however, and for that and her scrolls missing I will apologize profusely." The professor at the table, Ozpin, said standing up, leaning on a cane.

Ranma read his body language for a moment, and frowned slightly. The cane was obviously a weapon, not a necessity, despite Ozpin moving with a slight limp. Not enough of one to hinder his movement of course.

"So that whole starin' into her eyes was, what, part of some discussion opener?" He asked. "cause from where I was standin' it just came off as creepy or even a little pervy."

"Ranmaaaa…" Ruby groaned. "He wasn't, I mean I don't think he was, were, were you?" By that point Ruby had halfway convinced herself about Ranma's position and had backed away from the table slightly, looking as if she was going to bolt for the door.

"I was not!" Professor Ozpin said, losing his faint smile for the first time, which seemed to transport itself over to Glynda's face, the stern blonde seemingly amused at his discomfiture. "It is just that I had not seen anyone with silver eyes for some time that is all."

"And what were you exactly offering?" Ranma asked, still skeptical about the whole thing, but since neither of them was trying to attack him and no police had come down to cheek on the noise, he was willing to hear them out.

"Why a place in Beacon of course. I am after all it's headmaster and with the skill that Ms. Rose displayed this evening it's obvious that she is well ahead of the norm for Signal. I simply wish to put her in an environment that will challenge her."

Ranma's eyes narrowed, but Ozpin continued, now looking at him. "That offer of course extends to you as well. Your sister has been a magnificent addition to the Academy, and with your experience I could easily see you being the same."

"Really!?" Ruby said shouting excitedly before Ranma could reply. "Really?! You'd let me in now, I mean I'm only 15, that's…"

"Your skill speaks to me much louder than your age Ms. Rose." Professor Ozpin said smiling lightly at the girl, diverting his attention from Ranma.

He scowled a little looking over at Glynda, one eyebrow raised, twitching his head at Ruby, then at Ozpin. Glynda seemed to understand what he was trying to ask, and frowned, looking away. In response Ranma scowled, then looked at Ozpin, wondering if there was more than what the old man was saying going on here.

Suddenly the four of them looked up as a loud bang emanated from somewhere else in the police precinct. This was immediately followed by shouting and a familiar girl's voice raised in a yell.

"Oh no…" Ruby groaned, shooting out of her chair. "Um, thank you Professor Ozpin I'll accept but I gotta go!" With that Ruby disappeared, streaking past Ranma so fast that even Ranma had trouble tracking her movements.

For a moment he stood bemused staring at the rose petals that the girl had left behind again shaking his head. "What is up with the petals anyway?" But then he turned and moved out of the room himself quickly. "I better get out there, if Yang is in full on rage mode the police won't be able to handle her, though if they decided ta take Ruby's scroll away on their own I might let her kick a few of 'em around anyway."

Glynda moved to follow quickly, but Ozpin waited a moment. When they were both gone, Ozpin knelt down with some difficulty by the place where Ranma had been standing during his confrontation with Glynda. He traced the foot-sized imprints on the ground Ranma had left behind, set five inches into the concrete floor, then moved to check the door.

 _Interesting, and not a bit of semblance or aura either. Benzaiten has kept her brother's secrets for the most part, but it seems as if the little hints I've picked up might lead to a larger mystery. And then there is his time in the Grimm Lands near Vacuo to consider as well as those eyes of his, such a clear, sky-blue... Yes, getting this young man to join us at Beacon might be a very good idea, or at the very least lead to an even more interesting year._

Ranma raced after Ruby quickly and arrived just as Ruby burst through the last doorway separating the entrance way from the rest of the precinct. She rocketed towards Yang who was holding two policeman up in either hand shouting at them to release her sister or else. Yang's semblance was active, her eyes red, her hair glowing and a fiery corona surrounded her.

"Yang!" Ruby shouted, still shooting towards her, but visible now rather than a mere blur.

"Ruby!" Yang turned to her, tossing the two policemen aside. The aura of flame about her dissipated between one step in the next as she wrapped her arms around Ruby, taking the impact of the shorter girl barreling into her easily turning with it as her semblance deactivated.

The two sisters began to babble at one another talking over one another but somehow still communicating what had occurred. "What the hell's going on!? I was so worried about you and where the hell's your scroll! Why didn't you contact me immediately when…"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry things just escalated too quickly and I didn't have time and then one of the policeman took my scroll and…"

"He took your scroll! Where is he I'll…"

"Yaaaang you can't do that! You'll have a criminal record! They won't let you into Beacon, although I guess they might, considering Professor Ozpin, oh! I just got"

"What! You mean you're coming to Beacon with me! Suddenly this is the best night ever!"

"Wow, did they even breathe there I mean I've heard of chatterboxes but that was really impressive." Ranma drawled from the doorway, watching the police scamper off. They definitely weren't very well trained or have much actual toughness, making Ranma even more certain than he had been that any really dangerous task was handled by the Hunters here in Vale.

 _Which is stupid, Hunters should be used to hunt Grimm, not handle crimes and crap. Why don't the police here at least have their aura's activated like the ones in Vacuo?_

"Teenage girls tend to have a unique ability to talk and breathe at the same time." Glynda said drolly from behind him, before staring over at two policemen. "Where is Ms. Rose's scroll?" she asked in a deceptively calm tone. "And who exactly made the decision to take said scroll from a young 15-year-old girl?"

"You, but," one of police, a sergeant from his stripes, stammered. "But, but you said you wanted to question her so…"

"I wanted to talk to her, I did not in any way imply that she was a criminal who should be kept from communicating with her family for some reason. Find her scroll. **Now**." Though the tone of voice wasn't directed at him Ranma shuddered a little, and was unsurprised to see more than half the police in sight scrambling deeper into precinct to find Ruby's wayward scroll.

With that done Glynda turned to Ranma, her emerald colored eyes narrowing slightly. "How exactly did you get involved in this? Your sister mentioned something about you being a chaos magnet, but I didn't believe it until tonight."

"Yeah I've got that curse it's true. I bumped into Yang yesterday, and we kind of hit it off, and apparently I'm her only friend here in Vale, so she contacted me when Ruby wasn't back by her curfew or bedtime or whatever."

"You mean you and Yang met at your place of business do you not?" said Professor Ozpin's voice from behind him. Besides examining the floor, he had stopped to refill his coffee mug and stood there, smiling cordially at the two of them and then over at the two sisters who were still exchanging hugs. Their discussion by this point had moved on to the actual battle against Roman, with Ruby excitedly making karate gestures with her hands trying to describe the action.

"Yeah, that's right…" Ranma said quietly, staring at the man. He wondered how the old man knew that, and if maybe he had connections on the other side of the law, and who those connections could be. He did not like the guy, he came off as somewhat too knowledgeable and far too… something, not arrogant, but something else Ranma couldn't' put his finger on.

It wasn't that he didn't know the guy wasdangerous, he was. The guy gave off a vibe that for some reason reminded Ranma of Happosai when the old coot was serious, and Ranma could tell he had a **lot** of aura. Ranma was fine with that, but still there was just something there in the way he looked at Ranma and Ruby that told Ranma there was more going on here than the obvious.

Ozpin smiled genially, moving over to stand within arm's reach, speaking softly now. "I was serious inside, I can easily extend my offer to young Ms. Rose to include you Mr. Saotome. Your year out in the Grimm lands, if that was indeed where you were as Benzaiten ranted about at least twice, and your experiences during the fall of Semaphore would clearly make you more than qualified to come to Beacon."

"No." Ranma replied bluntly. "I've got no interest in becoming a student again. My experiences at Semaphore before it fell told me I'm more than qualified to be a Hunter right now in terms of skill. And in terms of Grimm knowledge, I've probably got any three or four of your professors beat now. Sorry, but I'm not interested in going back to learning things that don't matter to my line of work, or that don't matter in hunting Grimm."

"Indeed you could be right about your knowledge and skill, but I did not mean for you to be a student Mr. Saotome. I meant for you to be a teacher. Benzaiten has spoken often about how you keep to a code of honor? What better way to meet that Code then to help the next generation of hunters be better prepared for their trials?"

Ranma frowned. That honestly sounded good, too damn good to be true, and there was still that weird vibe he was getting from this guy. But it was true that Ranma alone could only do so much about the Grimm, a teaching position **would** allow him to prepare his students far better than the professors at Semaphore had been. It would help him spread his knowledge of the Grimm, which frankly was really lacking outside of general ways about how to kill them. _Unless of course it's hidden away in those hunter only archives the councils apparently keep, but that kind of information shouldn't be hidden like that, it should be shared._

And it might even let Ranma do four things he really wanted to do. One, teach other people about ki, and see if doing so could translate into helping their auras or at least their control. He knew thanks to Spring what the difference between aura and ki was, but hadn't come to a conclusion on which was better just yet.

Two, see his sister. After the initial attempt to yell/kick his ass for being one was over with that might be nice. It would be interesting to see how she had changed in the past year and a bit.

Three. Get some new weapons. He wanted to replace his mono-wire, find a gun style that suited him, maybe even design and build up enough money to pay for the construction of a mecha-form weapon.

And four, do something where he wasn't bored out of his mind most days. Spending time with Miltia, dealing with Neo, trading barbs with Roman and dodging Melanie's attempts to feel him up could only do so much to offset the boredom of the rest of his job.

Ozpin waited for a moment watching Ranma think then spoke up. "Mr. Saotome, I realize you might feel contractually bound to your current employer, but fear not. Any debt there is entirely superficial. With my aid you can get some real Hunter papers, papers which will show your worth to all, without needing to further prove yourself or spend time in a rather boring job to pay for it."

"What would I be teaching?" Ranma asked, trying not to let the man know he had already almost convinced Ranma just with that last bit.

"A wilderness survival course I think, possibly combat tactics. That class is normally reserved for seniors, but I have wished to extend that to the other students for years now." Ozpin mused.

Ranma frowned looking away, noticing that Glynda had stalked over to Yang and was haranguing her about overreacting and assaulting the police which to hear her tone was somehow a lesser offense. It sounded as if Yang wasn't going to get away with this scot-free, but wasn't going to be formally charged with anything either which was probably the best of both worlds. He exchanged a smile with Ruby, who waved at him, then moved over to take her sister's hand in hers, giving what support she could in the face of Glynda's wrath.

"What'd my pay be?"

"Free room and board would be supplied by the school." Ozpin replied evenly. "This of course would include outfitting you with what equipment you require in the pursuit of your duties as a teacher. I'm also certain that should you require aid in coming up with an actual curriculum, that your fellow professors will advise you accordingly. Other than that, there is a base salary we can go over once you arrive."

 _Okay, he's pushing all my buttons way to well for my liking, but at the same time, it's just too good an opportunity ta pass up. But if he thinks I'm gonna follow all the rules and act all teachery he can think again. "_ I'll agree, though I'll want ta look over the rest o' yer classes cover. The names you've given my course are nice and all, but I might want to expand them a little."

"Of course," Ozpin said, smiling. "I will see you at Beacon first thing tomorrow."

Ranma nodded, took one look at where Yang was still being yelled at, waved at Ruby, and then leaped up onto a nearby rooftop. Moments later he was away, never noticing the fact that Ozpin's smile had slid off his face the moment Ranma had turned away. Or the thoughtful expression on his face as he stared from Ranma's retreating back to Ruby Rose and back again.

 **End Chapter**

* * *

I was never happy with Yang's response to the whole Roman confrontation. I felt she should've been much more protective towards her sister given what happened when they were younger. Nor was the reason they were both in Vale at the same time ever explained. And the way Ruby was treated by Goodwitch and the authorities afterward was just shy of an abuse of power. She's a minor people! I'd think even in Remnant they have laws about that kind of thing even for Hunters or Huntresses in training.

Hope everyone liked how I portrayed Pyrrha, introducing characters your audience knows but your other characters don't is always a little tricky. She and indeed all the other characters will be seeing a lot more screen time in the next chapter. As will Benzaiten when she learns Ranma's been in Vale, and is going to be working with her from now on... Anyway, this chapter was another character intro and interaction chapter, the next one will be much more action packed.

Wild Wolf should be up this weekend, it's over at the beta now. At the end of that will be a announcement, but if you want to see it without waiting you can check out my profile on my page or the poll I will be posting here on ff.


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own Ranma (if this surprises any of you at this point seek help, really) nor do I own RWBY. I don't believe that 17 year old students should be dying to pay for the mistakes of their elders.

This story came second place in my poll, this month though Anything Goes Game Changer really gave it a run for it's money at least in the blind poll. I wanted to get this out this past weekend, but family time and blah…

Thanks for the new Title for this work goes to Argenten/Mordreek, who commented on my post over on my page.

Kudos for the beta work on this chapter goes to ultimaflare0, but I've noticed that my DNS seems to be acting up more than it was in the past, and I know I'm not the best at catching wonky wording unfortunately, so despite ultimaflare0's sterling work, there might still be mistakes. Still, without further ado:

* * *

 **RWBY chapter 5 A Little Influence Goes a Long Way**

Benzaiten smiled slightly as she sat across the small, low-slung table from her guests, sliding three small teacups across to them, having just filled them from her tea kettle, a small oval thing with a short spout and several dozen trees etched into its simple gray side. All three of Benzaiten's guests were second-year students, and easily her favorites among them. As she technically wasn't a teacher, merely a teacher's assistant/apprentice, she could play favorites outside of class, and it was well known that she did in this case. "Are you sure you won't want some Coco?" she asked looking over at the fourth member of the team.

"Not unless you're spiking it." Coco said with a grin, pushing up her designer glasses slightly up on her nose while cocking a well-dressed thigh to one side before turning her head to continue to peruse the books on the shelf which dominated one wall of the small, albeit very well accoutered, room.

"I'm afraid it's a little early even for me." Benzaiten replied smirking in reply at the younger girl's response before she turned back to the trio at the table. She held up her own teacup in both hands and bowed slightly towards her guests over it, inhaling the aroma of the tea before taking a small sip. The three across from her copied her movements, even Fox who was, **very** technically, blind. His ability to feel his surroundings via his Semblance more than made up for this lack, save perhaps in terms of colors.

After taking a sip Benzaiten spoke again. "I have to thank you again for volunteering for my little sociological test Velvet."

Velvet nodded, hiding her nervousness at the mention of that test with ease. "It's not a problem, we should know and be able to identify bad apples early on anyway." She smiled then, touching the giant who sat next to her with one gentle hand. "The hard part was convincing Yatsuhashi that he wouldn't need to step in."

Velvet Scarlatina was a tallish lanky young woman with long powerful legs on top of a thinly built sprinter's body. She was also an excellent kickboxer, something Benzaiten had personally seen to over the past year. Her long rabbit ears added at least a foot and a half to her normal height, sticking straight up from her long brown hair.

The giant next to her however topped even the tips of her ears by a good three feet, dwarfing her and Fox simply by sitting there. He was larger and broader across the shoulders then even Sheera Orchid, the bear Faunus Ranma and Benzaiten had met prior to the fall of Semaphore, though he was just as silent and soft-spoken. After all, when you were his size, you didn't need to bellow or shout. Further the massive two-handed Zhanmadao, its blade broader and heavier than any Beni could recall seeing in her old life but the shape matching that style, that Yatsuhashi wore on his back showed he also carried a very big stick at need.

"You are my friend little rabbit, and it pains me when others do not see the gentleness of your soul or worse seek to take advantage of that good nature." His tone was smooth and soft, yet his eyes were iron hard, and Benzaiten smiled hearing it. These two had been stepping around one another ever since she had met them, and she and Coco had a bit of a bet going on when the two of them would get together.

"Still, I agreed, and will abide by that decision. You will of course be nearby anyway will you not, Sifu?" Yatsuhashi asked, using the Chinese word for teacher respectfully.

"I will indeed." Benzaiten said smiling thinly. "Hopefully I won't need to step in either, but as I said when we spoke of this the first time this test has two parts to it."

"If a physical response was needed Yatsu'd be the least of their concerns, he'd probably just stop at one hit. Me, I'd cripple the bastards." Coco said, moving over to take a seat at the table now, holding up a book from the small library that Benzaiten had. "You mind if I borrow this?"

Beni nodded and Coco smirked, pushing the book on creating your own Dust rounds into her bag. Despite her affectations for tea, and her rather old-fashioned new mode of dress outside of combat, Coco liked Benzaiten. She was really cool for a teacher (even if she wasn't technically one all the students knew she was) and was also a strong woman, something Coco always liked to see. While she was mostly laid-back, Benzaiten also had a tongue on her that could strip paint if you got on her bad side, and was simply deadly in combat and not afraid to prove it to anyone idiotic enough to push things.

The young fashionista chuckled to herself remembering the time a fourth-year boy (and she used the word with feeling) had tried to hit on her, only to be put in his place with no uncertain terms. Benzaiten wasn't exactly a prude, in fact judging by the fact that Coco had seen her bedroom and knew for a fact she had several erotic novels hidden away she was anything but. Yet Beni had never been seen to be in a relationship with anyone in the year and a bit that she'd been in Beacon, and was the target of many a fantasy among the students of all levels.

That wasn't what Coco was most interested in right now though. Personal gossip was all well and good, but there were more important things to talk about now. "So, are there any students among the new meat we should be on the lookout for?"

"A few, you know of course that Beacon will become home to two celebrities yes?"

Coco nodded, the news that Weiss Schnee was coming here was old news, as was the fact that Pyrrha Nikos had decided to come to Beacon instead of Mistral's own academy. Coco was interested to see if the cereal girl was anywhere near as good as her hype made her out to be, and hoped that the Weiss girl wasn't going to be the typical snob that the upper class seemed to produce with predictable regularity.

"Other than those two, we have an old friend of mine from Semaphore coming here, young Jaune Arc. It will be interesting to see how his personal combat style has evolved, and there are one or two that came in on the combat test that could be interesting as well. And one girl whose name I can't remember at the moment, I'd have to look it up that comes in from Signal, apparently she was unbeaten there, though of course unlike Pyrrha, it doesn't matter as much since Signal isn't as well known."

Coco grinned suddenly, hopping to force Beni into one of her tirades. They were always fun so long as you weren't on the receiving end. "So… the new meat's completely unlike the third years?"

Not rising to the bait Benzaiten simply sighed. "Exactly, hopefully these students at least will turn out to be **real** Hunters." her tone was caustic, and Coco smirked glancing at her teammates who all rolled their eyes at her, though they did up sit up slightly straighter too.

Benzaiten had hoped that Beacon would be the excellent school it was known to be among Hunters but what had astonished and appalled her when she first arrived was that Vale and Beacon in particular produced so many Hunters because they didn't really push the students to be the best they could be. Students could flunk out of course, but there was a very heavy emphasis, far heavier than Benzaiten thought there should be, on schoolwork and book learning rather than combat skills.

This was because in Vale, Hunters were responsible for far more than simply Grimm hunting. Hunters in Vale could act as the equivalent of police investigators, tactical teams, emergency aid in times of natural disasters, bodyguards for important government, public or industrial figures, and a lot more. Even an army in times of war.

In contrast, the police in Vacuo had their auras unlocked. Even if their training was nowhere near what a Hunter could attain, nor their weapons of course, they could handle a lot more in terms of combat than any police force in Vale could. Of course Vacuo was a more rough-and-tumble nation than Vale, but Mistral was supposed to be the same.

Atlas, as another contrast, had a massive standing army of robotic units and a smaller force of regular troops thanks to having a well-protected heartland built over massive metal deposits and an equally large industrial and technological base. Yet Atlas produced only about a fourth of the number in Hunters. All of whom, and the academy that trained them, were tied into the military apparatus that ran practically everything in Atlas since the revolution which occurred in that nation after the last, so-called Great War.

So Beacon's curricula was geared to create Hunters which could meet all of Vale's needs plus be what Benzaiten called true Hunters in the privacy of her mind, who were seen as the elite in every other nation. And when Benzaiten had first arrived, the first and second years hadn't included a single student who struck her as a True Hunter: someone who was willing to lay their lives on the line to protect humanity from the Grimm and who had the requisite skill and drive to do it well.

When Benzaiten had discovered that, and further that it wasn't abnormal, her response had been blistering and denunciatory. But all Headmaster Ozpin had said in reply was that this was a time of peace, and that in times of peace even Hunters skills could be allowed to fade. That further he didn't make the rules for Vale, and so could not in good conscience push for the police force to have their auras unlocked, which would of course free up more Hunters for actual hunting duties, but which also might make criminals do the same in reply.

No, it was up to the students to be willing to put in the work, which Glynda had explained separated those with a true calling to be a Hunter from those that did not. After all, it was better to know who had the drive to keep their edge now than find out later on that they were merely going through the motions. And Vale also had a very low number of Grimm-related missions within the nation itself near the human settlements.

This made the need to have large numbers of Hunters, all of whom lived off the Vale Council's 'limited' budget, unnecessary. Ever since the last war the Council had been pushing for fewer Hunters on the payroll, but Ozpin, like the headmaster before him, had responded by coming up with more areas of society where those with Hunter training could be usefully employed.

So those 'B-grade' Hunters could make themselves useful providing a visible presence and a decent emergency reserve at need against any Grimm incursion. This and its natural defenses was why the nation of Vale hadn't lost any settlements for nearly two hundred years save Mountain Glenn, the doomed attempt to enlarge Vale the city ninety years ago.

This freed up the true Hunters for missions further away from human settlements. These missions tended to be extermination missions keeping Grimm numbers down or search and destroy missions to take out a specific group of Grimm or more normally a single S class. This of course required Hunters of an even higher level of skill than Vacuo, Atlas or Mistral produced, but kept the numbers of Grimm in the country down. That, and raids out into the wilds beyond Vale's natural defenses was why Beacon also produced as many excellent Hunters as it did.

Benzaiten understood all that. Or she did after Glynda sat her down over a cup of tea, one of their shared passions, at any rate. That didn't mean she liked it, and she had gone out of her way to… ginger up the incoming class of initiates the next year.

Everyone called what happened then the Coffee Incident, and it was why this year's induction ceremony was happening in the Emerald Forest rather than in Forever Fall, another nearby forest. It also meant that the eight students most likely to become true Hunters had sorted themselves into two teams, CVFY and RUST.

Team RUST, which had been sent out on a mission a few weeks ago to escort a trade convoy to Atlas, was led by Ragnar Seabreeze, a Wolf type Faunus. He was from some fishing village in the north whose name Beni couldn't ever remember and he always hopped on every mission that took him to sea. Nathan Burgundy, a young man from Mistral, and Terrence and Uzuri Copper, twins from one of Vale's larger mining communities, rounded out that team.

"Are you going to give another speech then?" Coco said grinning and staring at Benzaiten over her sunglasses which she wore even inside. No one on the staff save Beni, Glynda (and possibly Ozpin, who seemed to know far too much) knew that those glasses weren't simply a fashion statement. They were a protective measure, Coco having been born with eyesight which was highly sensitive to light.

"Perhaps. I would do it in a second if I didn't think that Ozpin wanted me to do just that. That man has a way of making you think you're dancing to his tune, even if you're doing precisely what you shouldn't be." Beni scowled theatrically causing Coco to laugh, while the other trio simply smiled even the taciturn Fox.

At that moment Benzaiten's scroll rang, and looking at it Beni's eyebrows rose. "Speak of the devil, just a moment." Picking up her glass of tea, Benzaiten took a sip opening her scroll with her other hand. She glanced at it then she suddenly spat out her tea in surprise. "PWAAA!?"

She coughed, smacking her chest for a moment as Velvet and Yatsuhashi both went to work trying to clean Fox's face, the victim of Beni's surprise tea assault while Coco laughed. "Something surprising professor, something dirty maybe?"

"Nothing like that thankfully," said Benzaiten, coughing still. She stood up abruptly, shutting her scroll and putting it in her pocket. "Feel free to finish the tea, then see yourself out, I have to go see the headmaster."

All four of the teens stared as Benzaiten raced out of the room, wondering what had rattled her so much. Then Coco smirked. "Heh, Beni should know better than to leave me unsupervised like this, that's just begging me to have a rummage." She got up, heading for the small dresser set against the outer wall under an overhang which held Beni's bed. "So Velvet, where do you think she hides her special little friend, ohh and what kind is it!? Personally I'm thinking she's a Cthulhu sort of woman."

"Coco!" Velvet exclaimed her face and rabbit ears going scarlet, as she stood up quickly, racing over to grab her team leaders arm, stopping her from opening the dresser's top drawer. As the two women began to argue both of the men simply shook her head and looked away, not wanting to get involved in this conversation, and still wondering why their favorite teacher's aide had just run off like that.

 **OOOOOOO**

Benzaiten took a moment to compose herself before the door to Ozpin's office, which was situated on the top floor of Beacon's central clock tower. Making certain her cheongsam and hair was settled, she then rapped sharply on the door. But before she could, Ozpin's voice rang out from inside. "Come in Benzaiten."

Grinding her teeth a little at the man's irritating ability to seem all-knowing Benzaiten did so, pausing to nod and smile at her master. Glynda smiled back, her normally stern face lighting up slightly, and Benzaiten pushed down yet another twinge of sadness. Glynda Goodwitch, despite her attempts to dress like a stern schoolmistress was **extremely** good-looking, and Benzaiten knew she had a thing for the serious sort. But Glynda had never given any hint of being interesting in the fairer sex, which meant Beni's interest would remain simply that.

"Hello Ms. Goodwitch, I'm sorry to bust in on you two like this, but Headmaster Ozpin Just sent me a message that you had met my brother and invited Ranma here as a teacher?" she said hooking one finger at the man sitting calmly behind his desk in front of the large window. "Is this true?"

"Indeed it is." Glynda replied for her employer, scowling a little at the memory of how Ranma had 'introduced' himself. "And I have to say you didn't tell us the half of how, how wild he can act!" From there Glynda went on to describe the entire incident involving Ruby and how she had met the young girl, covering it up till Ranma had left the scene.

Rubbing at her forehead Benzaiten shook her head. "I sincerely apologize on Ranma's behalf Glynda, and I promise to punish him for his disrespect when I see him. Though I can also see where he was coming from in this case."

"Believe me, given the fact that that Ms. Rose didn't have her scroll on her so could I." Glynda said feelingly. "The very idea a policeman would take a scroll from a underage girl infuriates me even now." As did the fact Glynda knew she should have made sure to check on it the moment she asked the police to detain Ruby. _Has it been so long since I dealt with young children that I can't even remember they aren't adults?_

"There was indeed a bit of miscommunication there." Ozpin cut in, speaking up for the first time, a faint smile on his face. "We both apologized to her profusely, and to her sister when she showed up, despite her… extreme overreaction."

"Or it's not miscommunication but yet another sign that the Vale police are utter incompetents, which we know they are," Benzaiten said tartly.

"They are well up to the task of they are normally called in for." replied Ozpin serenely. "Nonetheless, I have already asked a few of our graduates who have recently finished a rotation over in Dustville to review the Vale police forces readiness and training."

Dustville was a medium sized farming community deep in Vale's countryside, which usually housed around six teams of Hunters at all times on a rotation. Because of this there hadn't been more than a few Beowolves sighted anywhere nearby for decades despite the farming community not having any natural defenses.

That response however rather neatly showed what was wrong with Vale in Benzaiten's opinion, while also underlining Ozpin's own power base. Hunters shouldn't have to be called on to make sure police didn't abuse their power or were up to their jobs. But at the same time, only Ozpin could move to fix such a problem so quickly.

She glared at Ozpin but shook her head, putting that issue away as one she couldn't do anything about. "That's really beside the point right now. I have to ask, do you realize what you've done by offering my brother a teaching job?"

"I simply took an opportunity my dear. Given your tales of Ranma's abilities, the scant information we have about his actions during the fall of Semaphore from other sources, and the fact that he has apparently been living out among the Grimm since that sad event, Ranma certainly has the knowledge needed to become an excellent teacher."

"That part I'm fine with, sort of. If Ranma can train groups as well as he seemed to be able to train a single person that will be fine." Benzaiten replied. _Just have to hope he's realized that certain training ideas are more trouble than they're worth. And the fact that it also brings him here, where he can't get away from me is also a mere bonus._

"You're talking of young Jaune Arc?" Glynda said. "I still don't understand why his parents waited so long to put him through the Arc aura-awakening ceremony, but his skills on the practical entrance exam were very high despite not having access to it. Thankfully they caved at last after he passed despite that handicap."

"His parents hoped to keep him out of the line of fire, but I'm glad they finally caved to the inevitable. Back on topic and more importantly, you are bringing Ranma **here**. I'm not certain you understand what that might mean."

"You mentioned a time or two his ability to cause trouble, and given what we saw I completely understand, but…" Glynda began, only to be interrupted in a rare sign of rudeness from her apprentice/friend.

"No you don't. Ranma is **chaos** incarnate! It isn't even anything he does, at least not all a time. It's simply…" Beni paused, trying to figure out how to explain the sheer chaos that had unfolded like some weird avalanche in Ranma's life, all the memories she shared with him from his life after he was cursed. "He… causes reactions in those around him, they lose their common sense, they begin to act irrationally, and he seems to draw the most random events to himself without even trying. On his own, Ranma's no great respecter of authority, nor will he act like a normal teacher, no matter what you two think you can get him to do. And if you think he'll be happy merely teaching like most teachers do, in the classroom and under controlled conditions, think again."

"I'm certain a little discipline will keep him in line." Glynda objected.

Benzaiten fought off a blush at the idea of herself being disciplined by Glynda. _Oh if only._

"No," she said after a moment, "it really won't. If you push he'll push back, he won't give in, and he won't change. You might be able talk him into acting like a teacher during class, **maybe**. But you won't be able to force him." She turned back to Ozpin staring at him. "You like to style yourself what I've heard called the imperturbable chess master."

"That is a label placed upon me by my political opponents. I do not enjoy manipulating people nor do I do it for my own aggrandizement as that names suggests." Ozpin said cutting in, his eyes narrowed.

"No, not at all." Beni replied, even though the thought had crossed her mind a time or two. "But you like things where you are in control, where you can seem to be calm and collected. Ranma will test that feeling, believe me. You've invited a storm into Beacon, and all you can hope to do is ride it out." With that, Benzaiten nodded at them both and said, "If you excuse me, I left team CVFY in my quarters, and it's best not to let Coco unsupervised for extended lengths of time. I'll see you both during the initiation speech."

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma had spent the night sleeping on one of the rooftops he normally camped out on before heading over to Junior's at around noon the day after the episode at the police precinct. Junior was there of course. He always showed up around noon for a few hours to go over the bar's stock, which was even more important than usual now after the fight with Yang had destroyed a lot of the stock which had been on display.

Smirking Ranma walked up to him, tapping him on the shoulder. "Hey Junior, you know how you said it'd be a few more months before I could pay you off for my Hunter's License? Well, I don't think I need yer forgeries anymore. You'll never guess what happened last night…"

Ranma explained what had happened, watching Junior's face all the while. There was a slight flickering in his eyes as he mentioned Ozpin, and how Ozpin seemed to know that Ranma was working for Junior. There was definitely a flicker when he mentioned Goodwitch though that was more a fear reaction than any sign that he knew her. _Interesting, so he knows Ozpin, wonder if it's a straight contact or if there's some kind of go between. And I wonder why he's so scared of the blonde?_

When Ranma was finished Junior simply nodded, holding out his hand. "Can't say it's all been fun and games knowing you kid but it's been interesting at least. I think you'll do well at Beacon, and I wish you luck. Just don't bring Blondie back here, **ever** , okay?"

"Deal!" Ranma laughed, shaking the older man's hand, but didn't let go of it immediately. "But you know, that means I've been working for you the past few months for no reason right? So why don't we settle up accounts now?"

Junior winced, but with Ranma gripping his hand he simply nodded rather than object, and led the way to his office. Eventually the two came to an agreement that Junior would fund Ranma's shopping spree for his new living quarters at the academy. Ozpin had said room would be provided after all. That and covering half of the price of a new Hunter's suit, which Ranma already had ideas about, would bring them up even if Ranma in turn left copies of the recipes he'd been using in the kitchen.

Their haggling took a few hours going back and forth several times. Melanie and Miltia showed up halfway through, poking their heads in to see what was going on. After they were finished this forced Ranma to explain what happened to the two sisters.

Hearing Ranma was leaving the club Miltia's face fell. "So does that mean we won't be seeing you around here any longer?" Miltia didn't have many friends, not real friends anyway, though she wasn't interested in Ranma like her sister was, and didn't want to let Ranma just leave like that.

"I wouldn't say that." Ranma said with a laugh. "It's true that Hei Days ain't exactly my scene, but that doesn't mean I won't see you around. Besides, you too could come and visit me y'know? This'll be the first time that I have a place of my own to decorate anyway, and I'd appreciate the help with that too."

Miltia smiled eagerly at that, and Melanie nodded as well. "It could be interesting to see Beacon, at least to watch you kick the snot out of some Beacon students, they can't all be as good as blondey was."

"Heh, maybe. But for now," Ranma said smiling as he held up the cash that Junior just handed over to him. "How's about I treat you to a lunch as a farewell, okay? And I can show ya what I'm thinkin' of for my new hunter's outfit." Both twins smiled, taking his arms and dragging him out of the club quickly.

Later that day Ranma made his way over to Beacon, taking a bullhead up to the Academy, which was situated on a high plateau set into a massive portion of the mountainside that protected Vale the city. People were brought into a large aerial docking bay overlooking another docking bay for water-going vessels, down in the massive natural harbor that made Vale so important a port city.

Looking around Ranma stared down a long, wide avenue leading up to what looked like the main academy buildings through a large, doorway. On either side of it the avenue was marked with trees and light-poles draped with flags, as well as a number of fountains and statues between it and other avenues leading out into the rest of the academy.

Right in front of the main doorway was a large statue and fountain. The statue was of a Huntsman and Huntress standing on a rock over a beowolf's corpse. In the distance was a large tower, which seemed to overlook and dominate the entire academy. From where he stood Ranma could make out a number of green spheres, maybe the Beacon that the academy was named for. He also saw what looked like a clock face set high up the tower.

The only thing marring the majesty of the school in Ranma's opinion was the low music in the background coming from several speakers situated here and there high up on the lanterns. _I wonder why they're playing music anyway, is it some kind of anti-Grimm defense, keeping the students upbeat or something? I guess the students themselves could be feeling anxious, returning to school or heading into initiation or whatever._

His thoughts were interrupted however by a hand landing on his shoulder, causing Ranma to jump. "Hello Ranma, it's about time you got here, we expected you sometime this morning."

Trying to still his racing heart, Ranma turned quickly to stare at his sister. He took in her appearance quickly, but that appearance caused him to frown slightly. Beni had her hair in a braid hanging down one side of her chest, a very intricate looking but it stood out oddly in comparison to the rest of her outfit. That outfit looked sort of like that of a ninja, except for the fact that its shirt was sleeveless and covered by what looked like a chest plate from waist to neck, something that looked like that of a European knight. One shoulder was further covered by armor, and she wore heavy combat boots with steel tips and heels.

She also had a pair of large headphones, connected to something on her back, a small backpack set high up on her back right between her shoulder blades but she wasn't wearing the headphones on her head. No, they were those huge variety of headphones you could also use as portable speakers, and they were being used as such now. Set around her neck the headphones turned in their mounts so that they were facing outwards away from her body.

And they were playing the same sort of music that was coming from the speakers all around. For some reason that fact caused a small shiver to go down his spine as did the fact that his sister had her weapon in hand, Saifa Toboe's base resting on the ground for the moment, but with the neck held ready in her hand. Yet even that wasn't what caused Ranma to frown.

 _She looks older than she should be, crap she really does look like my_ _ **older**_ _sister now._ While Benzaiten was as short as always, her face, which should have looked like a normal 19 to 20-year-old, looked like she was around 27 or older. Beni's face was more angular, more lined, simply more mature and her body also looked older from what Ranma could tell/let him notice. _Weird it's like her soul or ki made her body older, is that even possible? Strange._

Ranma didn't voice that thought right away. Instead he smiled, somewhat wanly, knowing he was in for it. "Hey sister dear, you here to show me around?"

"Is that all you have to say?" Beni said smiling brightly. But there was a certain brittle edge to it that made Ranma wants to tread very lightly indeed. "Really, after being in Vale for several weeks and not contacting me, that is the first thing you say to me?"

Ranma frowned. _Now I could do two things here_. _I could bow my head and apologize for being an asshole for hangin' up on her and not contacting her for so long afterward. Or I could do the patented Saotome thing, and dig my hole deeper, get out any resentment she has about me not contacting her in a fight, and let Beni work it out of her system while I have some fun. Yeah that's a no-brainer._

"I have no idea what you're talking about sister. After all, I did try ta contact you once, and then you just yelled at me fer no good reason. I figured that was all there it was to it. And besides, the solution I thought up was workin', slowly sure, but it was working, so it ain't like I needed yer help at all. How was I supposed to know that Ozpin was so weird he'd just hand me a job offer like thiiiis!"

Between one word and the next of that last sentence Ranma was forced to dodge several punches and kicks from his sister, and he responded to this in time-honored fashion. "Wow you've become slower! I didn't think that was possible, what do they feed you heee!"

His last word trailed off into a squeak as Benzaiten raised her Saifa Tobou and fired a sonic blast towards him, causing Ranma to dodge out the way. A small tree behind him was caught and shattered by the soundwaves. But Ranma was up and already moving, smirking evilly at his sister as he leaped away. "I'm not the one that's gonna have to pay for that you know, and your aim sucks too!"

"Get back here Ranma!" Shouted Benzaiten, only realizing when she took off after him that she had sounded remarkably like, well practically every woman that had ever chased after Ranma at that moment whatever the reason. "You, you fucking bastard child of a panda whore and a bouncy ball on acid, you have all the emotional and social understanding of a rock, Insufferable little shit!"

She kept close with Ranma, coming in on him whenever he had to make a leap from a treetop to a rooftop as a raced through the Academy, passing over several started gold professors and students. After a moment however, most of them simply shrugged their shoulders and went back to what they were doing. After all, this was a combat school. The only strange thing about this chase was that it was happening on the rooftops rather than on the ground.

That and who was involved. The man was a newcomer, unknown to professors and students alike, while Beni was a known factor. What wasn't known was what the man had said to set her off. Most bet on something either insulting to her gender or hair color, with a few putting cash on jilted lover. Beni was known to have views on both, while the last was a topic of interest for many students and professors alike.

About 5 minutes into the chase Ranma found out why there was music playing. From behind him Benzaiten shouted "Saints forfend, manifest the swords of mine will so that I might make mine enemy go still and make an end!"

Ranma had a single moment to turn his head to stare at Beni for that strange lyric before he yelped and ducked forward, going at an angle to one side. He left the roof on a downward angle, almost as if he was going to slam into the wall of the next building over. But this move saved him from several dozen small knives that appeared in the air and through where he had been running at almost supersonic speed.

They dissipated after a few seconds after passing his previous position, though Ranma didn't notice that at first. "Someone's got some new tricks!" he shouted, then twisted in midair, pushing off the wall he had been about to slam into, heading back upwards and intercepting Benzaiten as she stood on the rooftop looking down. She barely had a moment to get Saifa Tobou in front of her to take his punch, which sent Beni skidding backwards, allowing Ranma to turn and race off again.

Benzaiten scowled angrily shaking her head then began to follow. Several times Ranma was forced to duck and dodge things that someone suddenly materialized out of the air all around him. They caused some small popping sounds, the only warnings he had which he was very grateful for. But Ranma really didn't understand what was going on here. _I thought that magic didn't exist here in Remnant, what the hell is this!?_

Dodging one of them he grabbed the spear out of the air, noticing that it wasn't really a very sophisticated version of that weapon, it was simply a long piece of wood sharpened at one end. He tried to look at it with his limited ki sight, and had only a moment to realize it was filled with Beni's ki before it disappeared, causing another pop and his fingers to hurt for a moment. "What the heck?"

That moment of inattention cost him and Benzaiten was on him, her hands flashing out almost faster than he could response to. _My female form's always been a little faster than my male form, but I'm the one who trained it that way, you're not going to surprise me like that Beni!_ Her attempt to slam his head into pieces with the butt-end of her weapon did surprise him but he laughed anyway. "I thought you had more respect for that instrument to use it like that sister!"

"Shut up you, you, fucking emotional cretin!"

"Wow quite a mouth on you Beni. Did you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Probably, can't remember. I certainly haven't kissed anyone with it in this life more's the pity." Benzaiten replied, muttering that last part to herself before lashing out with a kick that would've caught Ranma in the balls if he hadn't been looking for it. As it was Beni's boot caught him painfully in the thigh causing him to lose his balance. This pitched him forward into an uppercut, but Beni found herself grabbed and thrown in the next instant via a grip on her arm.

The two of them continued the back and forth as they launched themselves into the air, hanging there as each of them used the momentum of the blows of the other to remain in the air far longer than anyone not trained in midair combat would have been able to believe. They had just begun to fall towards the ground when suddenly both of their movements were arrested, and the two of them were flung apart from one another.

Ranma swiftly pulsed his ki through his body breaking whatever strange power was holding him. He landed on his feet quickly, staring at the cause of the interruption. In contrast Benzaiten simply let herself hang there in the air and began to re-braid her hair, which had come undone during the brief aborted battle.

Between the two of them Glynda tucked her riding crop under one arm, pushing her glasses up her nose. "I realize you said you would be remonstrating with him Beni, but I thought you would at least be sensible enough to bring him to one of the training rooms first."

Beni looked down apologizing nonverbally and Glynda nodded but went on. "Now, I could repair the damage you two did, but then you wouldn't learn. So replacing that tree you destroyed, and repairing the window and several other items which I noticed were damaged or destroyed along your route, will be coming out of your pay, **both** of you."

She watched as Beni winced, but nodded while Ranma looked indifferent, shrugging his shoulders. Glynda nodded and let her sternness fade slightly as she looked at her student. "Now, unless you wish to remonstrate with him further in which case I will take you both to a sparring ring and leave you alone for about an hour, your brother has some paperwork he needs to fill out."

The two of them looked at one another, and Ranma shrugged. "I'm good."

Benzaiten growled a little, but eventually nodded. In reply Glynda flicked her riding crop sharply downwards allowing Beni to fall to the ground.

She moved toward Ranma, clocking him upside the head with the flat of her hand. "Seriously, you need to realize that you don't have to do everything on your own, and that there are often times better and easier alternatives than going it alone. I could've helped you pay off that information broker of yours at the very least, if I couldn't figure out a way to have you simply test out of needing further schooling, like Ozpin did with a wave of his hand! And just because I berated you was no reason to cut me off as you did."

Ranma frowned a little still unused to the idea that someone in his family, sort of anyway, would wish to help him actually solve a problem rather than make it worse. "All right, I'll try to remember that."

For a moment the two of them fell silent as they followed Glynda towards her office. Her office, she was quick to point out when Ranma asked, not Ozpin's. For all that he was the headmaster, it was Glynda who actually ran things around Beacon.

"Really, so he's just a figurehead?" Ranma asked.

"Not all," Glynda sighed. "It's just that while the position of headmaster is supposed to be more to do with the actual running of the school, the day to day running of said school falls on me given his other responsibilities."

Benzaiten was far blunter about it, moving forward to touch her sifu's shoulder lightly. "What my teacher means to say is that she does practically everything because Ozpin can't be trusted to fill out paperwork."

"Well I can understand that, paperwork sucks!"

"But you are not in a position of authority, and you wouldn't dump it all on your beleaguered vice-principal, who is also a full-time teacher, whereas you only teach one class but instead simply sit in your office all day!"

Benzaiten paused, as Glynda smiled at her faintly, shaking her head. "Sorry Glynda, but you know it's true."

"And we've had this discussion before Benzaiten. The position of headmaster at Beacon Academy is not only an educational position but a political one, and he has many other calls one his time. He's also in charge of getting us our funding, and in that area Ozpin is far better than any other headmaster Beacon's had or any other academy in the world."

Besides his role as headmaster Ozpin taught one class to fourth-year students. It was an elective, Small Combat Tactics and long-term logistics, the same class Ozpin had wished to start extending to other grades, but which he had also ceded to Ranma in their discussion. It was one of the most popular classes Beacon Academy offered, and one of the best in Benzaiten's opinion. Say whatever you would about his general attitude, Ozpin could be inspiring when he wanted to be and there was no doubt about the man's bonafides as one of the best Hunters alive.

Nor was that the only place where Ozpin was unassailable and Beni sighed knowing that Glynda was correct that Ozpin had other demands on his time. "Then he should at least pay for you to have a secretary or something." she muttered. To which Glynda could only chuckle rueful agreement.

Deciding to change the subject Ranma asked, "So I anticipated you using Saifa on me, but what was with that appearing and disappearing weapons stuff?"

"That was my Semblance, which I call Musical Memory," Benzaiten said smiling slightly as she reached behind her neck to tap the small music player that was incorporated into her plate armor. The music blaring from the speakers had stopped a few moments before Glynda had interrupted them, and Beni had turned her headphones off when Glynda interrupted them. "My Semblance is basically manifestation based telekinesis."

"And that means?" Ranma asked looking at her blankly.

"It means that whatever I can imagine I can create in reality for a few brief moments. Small things for the most part, or at least lightweight things. Spears are wood after all and don't weigh much, nor do knives."

"That sounds an awful lot like magic," Ranma murmured, cocking one eyebrow at her.

Beni felt the real question he was asking and shook her head. "No it's nothing like that. I feel the drain on my aura when I create anything." _And through that my ki, though that took a long time to convince Glynda about, and even longer to convince her I could handle the drain without it threatening my life._

"And there is most definitely an upper limit to the amount of items I can create, and a far more striking limit as to the number of things I can create and then direct. I can create several dozen large knives and then control them for a little over ten minutes these days, or a significantly smaller number of larger items for the same amount of time. And I run the risk of becoming aura depleted very quickly if I don't pause between each mental manifestation."

There was a lot more to it than that, but most of it was technical aura manipulation details, which Beni knew Ranma wouldn't be interested in.

"And the music?"

"The music is an accompaniment. It's tied into the activation of my Semblance, and helps my mind manifest things, helps me to concentrate I suppose you could say. Without it I can barely do a fourth of what I can do with it, but at least under Goodwitch-sifu's guidance I've gotten past the need to need activating sonatas to call up everything."

"For most part anyway, you still tend to call them out sometimes. You used one out at the beginning of the battle." Glynda said critically.

"Oh, you heard that?" Beni looked guilty for a moment.

This deepened when Glynda nodded. "Myself and Ozpin were watching the entire battle. I stepped in when I did because you were heading towards the clock tower."

Ranma turned to look up at the giant edifice smiling and wondering if he could get a chance to climb up that thing and jump off it. Ranma loved to be in the air, and always took the time to head to any large edifice like that to get as much air as he possibly could.

"Can I ask what you're Semblance is Glynda?" Ranma asked looking back at the blonde teacher.

Glynda frowned, and for a moment seemed to want to say something, possibly demanding she be called Ms. Goodwitch or something, which Ranma would refuse of course. But eventually she shook her head. "Mine is simply telekinesis, matter manipulation. I won't tell you how it's limited of course, I want to see if you can figure that out on your own."

That it had an even higher aura demand than Beni's was one way, but one that most people realized after a time. The others she had told no-one, not even Ozpin, though he had no doubt figured out many of them. Beni certainly had figured out more than a few in barely a year.

"That's fine," Ranma said with a nod. By that point they had reached a large building set to one side of what looked like several sets of training areas. Glynda led them inside, while Benzaiten told Ranma this building housed the living quarters for many of the teachers. One teacher was assigned to live in each dormitory assigned to the freshman, sophomore and junior years. The seniors were assumed to be adults and had no such oversight, a fact that had proven itself many times over the years.

Ranma instantly asked if he could oversee the freshman dormitory, something Beni pounced on while Glynda looked at him askance until Ranma said that he wouldn't allow any drinking or anything after hours.

Beni backed him up on that, which put Glynda's fears to rest somewhat. "Ranma might be a bit of a bore at times, but he's not going to allow anyone to drink, take drugs or take advantage of anyone else. And trust me, he'll come up with punishments… unique enough to stop anyone from wanting to face them a second time. And he could also lend the students a ready ear, someone closer to their age they could go to with any problem."

"So in many ways like sister like brother?" Glynda asked, one eyebrow arcing sardonically. Beni looked sheepish while Ranma looked at her, wondering what that was about.

By that point they had arrived at Glynda's office, a rather austere place, though Beni had seen her living quarters and knew that austerity did not carry over into there. While Beni waited Glynda and Ranma quickly went through several forms, with Glynda explaining what they were and Ranma putting his name on them one after another.

After several minutes however he paused at one of them looking up at Glynda askance. "I'm supposed to be training these kids right, how can I put my signature on something that says I'd be held 'fiscally responsible' for anything that hurts them in my class?"

"Your class isn't a combat related course Ranma." Glynda said sternly. "You'll be teaching them about wilderness survival at least at first."

"And that comes with a lot of risks." Ranma said shaking his head. "I'm not going to be teaching them that stuff in class or some kind of controlled environment, I'm going to be taking them out into the wilderness and showing them how to survive out there in different environments with different levels of prepared gear or even without it entirely, how to sneak around, how to survive off the land. All of which comes with the risk of injury even with students who have their aura's activated."

Glynda scowled angrily, not happy with that idea and the resulting paperwork that organizing such field trips would cause, but after a few moments she nodded. Ozpin had been insistent that they needed Ranma here teaching, and it was obvious the young man did have some skill, both in terms of his combat ability and in the specific area he would teach given he'd survived in the Grimm wilds for more than a year. "So what level of risk would you say your class would be?"

"That depends," Ranma said, his eyes not giving anything away. "Obviously there'd be the danger of Grimm attacks, as well as how ta deal with bug bites, how to find places to sleep, how to set up traps, how ta hide from Grimm, how to hide yer camp, that kind of thing. I also don't know anything about how you guys teach combat here, so I might be teaching a little bit of that as well."

Glynda gripped her riding crop hard, and began to bend it between her hands, before letting go of it. She counted to 10 for a moment and went on her teeth gritted slightly. "Ranma, are you aware that I teach the combat course here?"

"No I wasn't," Ranma shrugged. "But my point still stands."

"Perhaps," Benzaiten said stepping in quickly as a mediator as she saw Glynda ready to reach down to her riding crop with fell intent. "We should wait on that bit for now? After all, Ranma's class isn't going to be the first one the freshman take. We can wait a few days, let Ranma observe some of the courses, and then talk to some of the other professors to iron out what he'll really be teaching? Sifu, you know as well as I do that some of the classes could to with a bit of… rejuvenation yes?"

"If you think I'm going to write up a formal syllabus or something think again," Ranma said, making an X with his hands in front of his face, but after that he went on in a much more conciliatory tone. "I'll write up an overview or a list of things I might teach, but I'm not going to get into any specifics until I figure out how much I need to bash into these kids heads, how much most of them already know, and how best to go about it."

Glynda frowned thoughtfully, then reluctantly nodded her head, kneading the bridge of her nose. _Honestly that's more than most of my so-called colleagues will do, these days, and Beni's right, Port's class for example could do with a new approach to put it mildly. The man really is almost as good as he thinks he is as a Hunter, but as a teacher he's been a disaster. And Ozpin did say Ranma should sink or swim just like everyone else has when I asked him about it. Damn that man!_

"Very well, we can hold off finalizing that bit of paperwork for now. Will you at least ask for advice and make certain you're not stepping on any toes before you teach your first class?" She went on, knowing she was lying slightly even as she did. "I am not concerned so much about the second as the first of course. You've not taught classes before, and they require a lot more organization than you might think."

Ranma nodded agreeably, and Glynda went on. "The next bit is your Hunter's license, then Benzaiten can show you around, including your room. For some reason I've think I've developed a headache."

"And this will be your room." Benzaiten said, a bare hour later. "It's rather small I know, but if you're careful you can get a surprising amount of stuff in here. I personally have a book shelf, a bed and a sitting area. You can also ask for an overhead to be installed if you want it."

Ranma looked around, shaking his head. The room was around 24' x 24', with a smaller bathroom to one side and a small kitchenette situated along one wall, separated from the rest of the suite by a small dividing wall. "It's nice enough," Ranma said with a nod. "I'd prefer ta have bigger windows, but I can take care of that and anything else I want ta add myself."

"Just make sure you clear it with the staff first." Benzaiten said, though she knew it would go in one ear and out the other. Ranma would do what he wanted to, and she knew he was good enough at martial arts construction to perform any additions himself anyway. "Now, let me show you around, and in particular let's get your picture for your Hunter's License. Then we'll see if there's anything in the armory you want to use now, or if you'll need to order something special from the armorers."

OOOOOOO

Two days after what Yang had come to call the VPF, or Vale Police Fuckup, Yang and her sister boarded the bullhead that would carry them to what would be their home for the next four years. Surprisingly when they had brought it up with her father, Taiyang had acquiesced to Ruby joining Yang at Beacon early, which had astonished Yang given how protective he was of them both. But he put it in perspective for her, saying that Ruby really wouldn't be learning anything new in terms of combat if she stayed at Signal, and that with Yang there to help her in her normal studies she could probably keep up with that too.

Yang grimaced a little remembering that very pointed remark, knowing that her father would now be making certain that her own grades stayed high, something that she wasn't very happy about. But for now Yang put that thought aside. After the bullhead took off she looked, then smiled as she saw a familiar redhead moving through the crowd, the crowd parting for her automatically. "Hey Pyrrha, over here!"

She could feel Ruby twitching beside her, moving to hide behind Yang's bulk. But with a smile and a very firm hand Yang grabbed the younger girl by her hood and pulled her out of her hiding place. _Oh no you don't Rubes. It's time to play 'let's make friends' little sister, and you can't get out of it anymore._

"Hello Yang, and… Ruby, yes?" Pyrrha said as she came close, smiling happily at the blonde's greeting.

She frowned slightly as a rather tall blonde boy lurched past them, muttering some kind of mantra under his breath. "I will not get sick, I will not get sick, mind over body, mind over body!"

Shaking her head Pyrrha turned away from him, her frown directed at Yang now as she asked, "What exactly happened that night? Ranma didn't tell me much."

"I think this one can explain it best." Yang said ruffling Ruby's hair laughing as the shorter girl smacked her hand away pouting.

"It's not that interesting a story." she whined.

"I'm truly interested Ruby," Pyrrha said, smiling at the younger girl kindly. "Besides, if it you are here at all, that means that it must have been truly impressive."

"See?" Yang laughed. "You're getting in two years early Ruby, everyone's going to think you're the bee's knees, and your beat-down of that asshole Torchwick is big news!"

"I don't want to be impressive though." Ruby replied, pouting and kicking her feet. "This whole skipping two years thing is, I mean at first I thought it was great, but then I kind of got to thinking you know? I mean I'm leaving all of my friends back at Signal, all of you are going to be two years older than me, and everyone's going to be looking at me and judging me and I don't want to be the bee's knees like you said I just want to be a normal girl with normal knees."

"I can understand where you're coming from," Pyrrha replied after a moment with manifest understatement, though she didn't elaborate on why that was. "Nevertheless, it really is a bit of a mystery to me Ruby, and getting more so by the minute. Could you please tell me what happened?"

Ruby sighed, but nodded, and spent the next few minutes going over her run-in with the infamous Roman Torchwick, pausing as a picture of the man in question came upon a news bulletin shown in a hologram against the bullhead's side. She broke of looking at the picture with her head cocked to one side. "Although… I think he looked a lot better than that in person."

"Oh really?" Yang said smiling at her evilly.

But Ruby quickly shook her head. "Not like **that** Yang, I mean ugh he's so old!" In his hideaway in the docks Roman Torchwick suddenly bit through his cigar, scowling as he wondered why he had the desire to kill anyone wearing a red hood. "But that picture, it makes Torchwick look as if he got stung by bees or something!"

All three girls laughed at the idea, then Yang and Ruby both flinched as the picture was replaced by an image of Glynda Goodwitch. As Ruby explained why they were flinching to a still-curious Pyrrha, Yang noticed suddenly that all of the other would-be students seemed to be staring at them. "Hey Pyrrha, don't look now but…"

Pyrrha sighed. "I know they're all staring at me."

"Actually they're staring at us for talking to you." Yang growled a little and held up her fist clenching it, causing most of the onlookers to look away quickly. "Ugh, stupid assholes who'd rather ogle than see if they could actually talk to you like a normal person. Well whatever, whatever your fame, you're still just another girl to me at least."

As Pyrrha beamed, Yang smirked, looking back at the taller redhead. "I looked you up, the Invincible Girl and all that? I wonder when we'll be able to have a match, I was undefeated at signal to y'know, could be fun."

"I look forward to the challenge," Pyrrha replied, her beaming smile become somewhat more challenging. Her eyes were gleaming almost as much as Yang's, staring at the slightly shorter girl.

Then Ruby interrupted them, shaking her head. "I still don't understand why that would make people act so differently around you. I mean your matches that Yang found on the Rem-net were cool and all but Ooh…" Ruby's eyes gleamed as she went on, staring up at the taller girl eagerly. "That mecha-shift javelin you use, that is so awesome! Did you make it yourself?"

Pyrrha laughed, shaking her head but grateful at least that these two weren't going to try and put her on a pedestal like so many had before. "No, I designed them, but I had one of my great aunts make them for me, she's a famous artisan in Mistral, perhaps you've heard of her?"

While the two redheads talked, Yang turned her thoughts to someone else she wanted the challenge and thank equally. Ranma had helped a lot that night with Ruby, but Yang still wanted the challenge them, especially given the fact he'd healed himself so easily of all the wounds she had given him in their fight. _Just how much did you hold back Ranma? Heh, I'm lookin' forward to seeing_ _ **all**_ _you can give me, and if you think you can just up and disappear on me like you did two nights back, think again. Yang Xiao Long doesn't let her target out of her sight so easily._

The two redheads fell silent for a moment as the same boy from before raced past them, heading towards the small bathroom at the back of the bullhead. He didn't make it. "Blargh!"

All three girls grimaced, though Pyrrha looked concerned and was about to go see if she could help the boy, but after that initial surge the boy had made it into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. A few seconds later they landed, and Pyrrha exited the ship with Yang and Ruby, looking around with a faint smile on her face.

But while Yang and Pyrrha were either looking at the magnificent academy, Ruby went gaga over the weapons on display. "EEK, look sis he's got a collapsible staff! Ooo and that one, she's carrying a sword with a Flame Dust attachment, and that guy over there…"

Yang sighed, covering her sister's mouth for a moment while Pyrrha giggled, despite looking a little worried at the younger girl's enthusiasm. "Easy there little sister, they're just weapons. Besides, aren't you happy with Crescent Rose?"

Scowling Ruby smacked Yang's hand off her mouth. "Of course I'm happy with my belo-er Crescent but I just like seeing new ones. Weapons for Hunters are like works of art, extensions of ourselves so it's like meeting new people… only better." At the last few words she looked away, frowning.

"While I agree with that Ruby, I think Yang is worried that unless you make the effort to get to know the people behind the weapons you might become isolated despite how nice a girl you are." Pyrrha interjected mildly, smiling at the younger girl.

"Exactly sis!" Yang said, linking one arm with Pyrrha's as she smiled at Ruby.

"Bah, I don't need to meet new people! I've got the two of you right?" Ruby asked.

"Heh, well, about that, um…. My friends from school are here and we're gonna go look around, so we're gonna go bye!" Yang said, before disappearing into a crowd with Pyrrha almost tucked under her arm as Ruby shouted her name.

It took the Mistrali champion a few minutes to realize what had happened given its suddenness and her lack of experience in social situations, but when she did, Pyrrha put her feet down and dragged Yang to a halt quickly. "Yang, why ever did you drag me off like that, actually why did you want to leave Ruby alone in the first place?"

Yang's face was serious as she replied, despite the fond smile on her face as she continued to drag Pyrrha away from where they had left Ruby. "Think of it as sort of forcing Ruby to sink or swim, Pyrrha. Let's face it Ruby's a great girl, but she kind of messes up on first impressions. Once she pushes past that, she's fine, a little too weapon crazy, but she can talk about other things too, and can overcome that initial awkwardness."

She paused then shook her head. "If people give her a chance, and if she's forced to try. If you and I are around she won't even make the attempt, Ruby'll just avoid interacting with anyone else, and she won't learn to make new friends or work with other people. We can't be there all the time, and it's better she tries to make friends now before we go through initiation rather than later. That way if she doesn't end up on a team with one of us she'll still be able to make friends."

"Hmmmm…." Pyrrha frowned, but eventually nodded. She didn't have any siblings after all, so maybe Yang was right despite her methods. "I can't say I agree with this, but I'm willing to follow your lead I suppose. It just seems a little mean to me."

"Trust me," Yang said smiling wider now. "It's for her own good. Now, let's drop off our stuff, find the auditorium, and then see if we have time to explore before the induction ceremony."

Pyrrha sighed but nodded and followed after the other girl, wondering what she was getting into associating with the other girl. _Well, it will at least be interesting…_

 **OOOOOOO**

"Hey, I'm Jaune."

Ruby looked up at the hand held out in front of her. The boy standing above her was somewhat tall and broad-shouldered. He wore a chest plate of armor, as well as vambraces and thigh guards, and he had a sword and a sheath on one side of his belt. The other side held a large pouch, and he had a duffel bag over one shoulder.

He also had blue eyes and a pretty handsome face, a portion of Ruby Ruby's mind which had long gone unheard noticed. Though the rest of her said "Aren't you the boy who threw up on the ship?"

"I'm never going to live that down am I?" the boy said, then smirked. "But I suppose I'm not the only one screwing up on the first day Crater Face."

"Hey that was an accident, it totally wasn't my fault!" Ruby said, pouting and looking away even as she grasped his hand.

"Nope it wasn't." Jaune said, lifting her onto her feet easily, something Ruby noticed _._ "Still, it was kind of funny from where I was standing."

"Oh yeah, so was your vomiting." Ruby shot back smirking at him.

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Yeah probably was, though it wasn't on this end. I used up all of my meds on a trip back home and getting back here after I got into Beacon. Forgot that I'd have to have at least one more trip up to Beacon afterwards. More fool me I guess." He looked at the young girl and said "Truce?"

"Truce." Ruby said with a nod and the two of them walked off together silent for a moment as they stared around at the academy avidly. After a moment Ruby began again. "So, I've got this thing?" With that she whipped out Crescent Rose, the mecha-form weapon transforming from it's portable mode into its scythe with smooth clinking sounds.

Watching as the giant blade of the scythe cut into the stone of the walkway Jaune shook his head. "That is all kinds of awesome." Looking closer his eyes widened. "It's also a sniper rifle?"

"Yep, heh I kinda went overboard in designing it I guess."

"Wait you designed that yourself?! Wow, when I tried to design my own weapon, I couldn't get it to shift properly, so I had to go back to square one." He tapped the sword at his side affectionately. "Still, can't beat the classics."

Ruby made an interrogative noise, and Jaune pulled the sword out of its sheath, flipping it up and into a quick figure 8. "This is Crocea Mors, my family's sword. The blade on this thing has to be seen to be believed, it's made of some old metal no one knows how to use anymore anymore, so I guess I should've known I couldn't find a better close range weapon."

"Ooh, can I hold it?"

Jaune nodded, handing it over and watched as Ruby sagged under the weight, the blade of it slamming into the ground of the walkway and cutting even deeper then Ruby's Crescent Rose had. "Wow, you're sword's really heavy, it even look bigger when I'm holding it, don't think I could hit anything with this thing. Um, a little help?"

"I know." Jaune said with a laugh, taking it from her and flipping it into a salute before sheathing it. "Took me years to get used to the weight."

"Is that your only weapon?" Ruby asked after she blew on her hands for a moment.

"Nope, I've got a submachine gun too." Jaune tapped his duffel, which clinked a little. "I tried to make it a mecha-form weapon but like I said that failed miserably."

"Oh, um... I could help with that if, if you want." Ruby said, scuffling her feet shyly.

"I'd like that I think, though let's wait until we get used to the classwork first okay?" The two of them continued to talk as they made their way down the path, until they stopped at an intersection and looked around. "By the way, do you know where we're going?"

"I thought you did!" Ruby said exclaiming and looking around anxiously.

About fifteen minutes after they realized they were lost, Ruby and Jaune raced into the auditorium, noticing that they were near to the last ones to show up. "Still we made it in time!" Jaune said holding up his hands in victory.

Ruby shook her head. "Yeah, I guess we should've asked for directions sooner."

They were interrupted at that point by a shout from the crowds of students in front of them. "Hey Ruby over here, I saved you a spot!"

Jaune made to stop Ruby from racing off, but then shook his head. "Now where am I going to find a nice quirky girl to talk to?" He looked up at the auditorium entrance and saw Benzaiten there with Glenda, and waved at her, and getting a small, almost imperceptible wave in return before making his way towards the dais.

He didn't notice that there was a tall redhead standing nearby, leaning against the back of the auditorium and staring at the other redhead on stage. _Good grief, she really does have the same color as I do. That's amazing, I wonder what she's like? And I wonder if Ranma will finally actually answer his scroll tonight…_

Shaking her head at that Pyrrha leaned against the auditorium wall, blending into the background for a bit with a sigh of relief for a moment. She'd join Yang and Ruby later, right now she just wanted to disappear for a moment and think about her hopes and dreams for next few years.

 **OOOOOOO**

No one looked up at Ranma where he was standing among the rafters of the auditorium, listening to the speech. _Wow, that was really crappy and really abrupt, or was that supposed to be some kind of mystic do-it yourself BS? Blech._

Moments later Ranma was walking next to his sister as they made their way out of the back of the auditorium. After having the fact that the school relied on its students motivating themselves he asked, "Wait, someone actually thought it was a good idea for young hormonal teens to be thrown into a room together? And I'm not just talking about tonight I'm also talkin' about the teams here, who I've noticed are sometimes cross-gender."

"It's a test of self-control. If initiates can't control their hormones even for a single night it's a sign of immaturity that simply couldn't be tolerated in any kind of Hunter. Of course if a couple is already married or affianced we let it go, this world much like our own sometimes forces young people to become so early at times."

She smiled as Ranma blanched at the memory of his previous romantic entanglements, but went on to his next question without pause. "But the teams are the way they are because out in the field you sometimes have to deal with not having much privacy. If individuals can't come up with a system to deal that here in a place of safety, how will they be able to do it out there?"

"Well good luck with that." Ranma said patting her on the shoulder. "I want ta look around a bit longer, then head to bed."

"You mean you're going to leave your sister here all alone to deal with fifty plus irritating, hyped up and hormonal teens?" Beni pouted.

"Yeah pretty much." Ranma said with a laugh. "Later." With that he walked off, leaving Beni to return to the auditorium alone.

 **OOOOOOO**

Inside the auditorium Yang fell with a thump onto her very comfortable and stuffed sleeping bag next to her sister. Their father and Druncle Qrow had brought her and Ruby on numerous camping trips, and both girls knew how to rough it, and had the gear to be comfortable doing it. "It's like a biiiig slumber party!"

"Don't think dad would approve of all the boys though." Ruby replied, not looking up from where she was writing something on her scroll.

"Meh, they're okay I guess…" Yang said with a shrug, looking over at some boys who were posing shirtless, even play fighting in an effort to get some of the girls attention. To her mind though, they all lacked a certain **something**. Looking was alright, but Yang had seen better recently, and from someone who had more going for him than just good looks. Instead she concentrated on their missing friend. "I wonder where Pyrrha went off to."

Pyrrha had rejoined them quickly after the initiation speech disliking the crowd, but then had disappeared just as quickly when they all went off to grab their sleeping bags.

"She said something about having to check in with her mother."

Yang frowned at that, wondering why their friend would have to check in before going through initiation. Some of the things she'd seen in the Mistral newsfeeds had made it clear her new friend's countrymen weren't all happy their idol had decided to go to Beacon instead of staying home. _Wonder if her parents didn't like it either?_ Shaking her head Yang looked over at what Ruby was doing. "What're you writing?"

"I'm writing to some friends at Signal. I didn't return to the island remember, Dad came here with my stuff, so I'm just telling them what happened. A few of them might actually miss me after all." The younger sibling replied rather caustically.

"Cheer up Ruby," Yang said, rubbing her head affectionately. "You'll make new friends."

"Tell that to Weiss." Ruby shuddered a little at the mention of the ice princess. Her tirade right before Ozpin's weird speech had been cold enough to freeze the air around them.

"That's a bad example, what about Jaune, or Pyrrha?"

"…I guess so," Ruby nodded, not wanting to say that she had made friends with Pyrrha through Yang and Ranma rather than on her own merits. But Jaune was nice, so it did kind of even out? She looked up, staring around to find the boy and then snorted before breaking into giggles and hopping to her feet and walking over to the source of her giggles. "Jaune, what are you wearing?!"

Yang looked up, then blinked and slapped one hand over her eyes shaking her head before getting to her own feet. Jaune had just walked in from the changing area wearing pajamas, but not just any pajamas. The blonde wore a one-piece with fluffy feet! "Really Jaune, really?"

Just like she had thought when Yang had first seen him a few moments before this when Ruby first introduced them, Jaune looked about as adorkable as a guy could get. That was sort of the type Yang felt Ruby might go for, either that or a boy who owned his own armory, though that would not have been as healthy for her in Yang's opinion. _I just hope he doesn't like weapons as much as she does. Ruby needs to grow away from that, not more into it._

"I'll have you know my little sister sisters made this for me." Jaune said, standing in front of them as several nearby girls looked at him then away. He pulled out his scroll and opened it holding it out to Yang and Yang. On it they saw a picture of three girls, ranging in age from Ruby's age down to a ten-year-old girl who was possibly the cutest little thing Yang had ever seen. "I dare you to say no to those faces." he said drolly.

"Okay, I can see your point," Yang said after a moment. "Little sisters are kind of hard to say no to aren't they. Though I bet Ruby's puppy dog expression can beat theirs all hollow."

"No chance!" Jaune said shaking his head. "They have a three to one advantage, and the twins are a bad influence on little Dia."

"So you're wearing that because your sisters made it for you?" Ruby said with a smile. "That's sweet of you."

Jaune blushed a little, scratching at his cheek. "Well, it did make a promise to them I'd wear it soo…"

Some of the other girls nearby had also giggled at the pictures having seen them over Yang and Ruby's heads, and were looking at Jaune in a new light. For some reason that irked Ruby, and she shook her head. "How many sisters do you have anyway?"

"Seven, four older, three younger. And three sets of twins. Three of the older four are already hunters, though the fourth, Amethyst…" Jaune frowned shaking his head. "The fourth decided not to follow them, she's taken over helping our parents on the farm."

"So you're a farm boy," Yang said grinning and nudging Ruby. "We're sort of from the sticks ourselves."

"I guess you could say that, yeah." Jaune said laughing. "I'm from Vacuo, and most foreigners would probably say the entire country is out in the sticks."

The three of them continued to talk until they were interrupted by a strident voice from nearby. "Excuse me, but some of us are trying to slee-oh not you again!"

Wincing and staring between the rather cute girl with white hair and Yang who had both uttered those last four words Jaune moved away quickly, bowing politely to Beni who was already making her way over to the trio of girls before heading over to the guys section of the room. While normally he'd stop and talk to Beni, who he'd last seen a few days ago, Jaune had no wish to get in the midst of a catfight, and knew when one was brewing.

For her part, after her treatment of her sister earlier Yang was more than willing to smack the shorter girl upside her head, and that was getting to be an almost overpowering urge watching her glare at Ruby who was wilting under her glare. "What's your problem with my sister anyway?" she growled, stepping forward and glaring at the shorter girl.

"She's a hazard to my health!"

"She's not going to be the only one if you keep on bullying her!" said Yang angrily, cracking her knuckles explosively.

"Excuse me." said a new voice, once again interrupting them. "But all three of you are making a little too much noise for this late at night. Might I suggest that your time would be better spent getting some rest before your initiation tomorrow?"

They turned to see the redhead who had been on the stage standing there, her hands folded over her stomach, a faint smile on her face. Despite the fact that she looked like a dress-up China doll, there was an air of contained danger about her, and her smile somehow shut all three of the girls up.

"We're sorry." Ruby said quickly speaking up for all three. "We'll head to bed now."

"Very good." The redhead said, her smile becoming significantly warmer at the quick response. She cocked an eyebrow at Yang, while Weiss simply muttered her own apology and moved off quickly. "Flattening your fellow freshman except under controlled circumstances is frowned upon Ms. Yang, I hope you can keep that in mind."

"I wasn't going to hurt her… much." Yang said smirking, not at all put off by the redhead's manner. She wanted to ask if the redhead was Ranma's sister in fact, who he had mentioned during their pizza dinner, but didn't think the redhead was in any mood to talk.

"I'm sure." Beni replied, then made a small shooing motion. "Bed. I'm quite certain you'll need all that energy tomorrow."

She moved off before Yang or Ruby could reply, and the two sisters shrugged at one another before back to their sleeping bags.

On her way back to her position by the auditorium's entrance Beni paused, kneeling gracefully next to a very pretty girl with black hair and a bow tie who was reading by candlelight. "I would find a place to stop if I were you." she said softly. "I'm afraid that most of your fellow initiates are beyond the point where they can sleep with a nightlight."

The girl looked up, her lips quirking in a faint smile at Beni's joke, and nodded her head. "Thank you Ms.?"

"Benzaiten, I'm the assistant combat, Phys Ed. and combat tactics instructor."

"That last one an elective for third and fourth years yes?" Blake asked. "It was one that really interested me, including a new one I got a note about on my scroll, a wilderness survival and tactics course"

"Yes, that one will be a freshman only class for at least a semester, then we'll slowly enlarge it to the other years. You'll meet the new instructor for that tomorrow at some point. If you pass initiation that is, Ms.… Belladonna? I believe I recognize you from your combat initiation test. You were very good for someone who had no formal schooling."

She watched as the young girl stiffened, but it was so subtle that you would've missed it if you weren't looking for it. "When you live out past the big cities or even the smaller communities if you can't fight you can't survive."

The bland response gave no hint of where Blake had gotten her combat skills from, but Beni wasn't put off. Everyone had their secrets after all. "In that case I will see you around. It's always nice to meet someone else to enjoy the written word, as well as Oriental fashions. You'll find my door is always open, and I'm always ready with tea and a willing ear if you require it."

Blake nodded, her smile widening slightly at the mention of tea and the hint that Beni also enjoyed reading. "I'll keep that in mind Ms."

"Benzaiten please," Beni replied firmly, standing up. "Ms. makes me sound old, and I'm not a professor so I do not require that minor addition to my dignity outside of class." She smirked. "I already have a few students who are too formal for my taste in any event."

Blake nodded noncommittally, and watched as the redheaded young woman moved away. _That was interesting._

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma woke up early, as was his wont since arriving in this world. He greeted the day as per normal heading out to one of the open fields of the Academy and bowing in the direction of the sun. "In the name of Amaterasu, I greet this day. In the name of Hachiman spirit of all warriors, I devote my life."

While Ranma wasn't exactly religious, he'd spend a lot of time around monks on the training trip with his old man, and some of their practices had rubbed off on him. And since arriving in this world, where there were Grimm to fight and a cause worth his skills, he had become slightly more religious, if in a very odd direction in comparison to the locals.

With that done Ranma immediately moved into one of his katas, his fists and feet a blur. About an hour later he paused when another young man came into the same clearing. He looked like a slightly older student, with milky white eyes, dark skin and strangely Fox like appearance, with scars crisscrossing his arms. The man pressed one fist into his other's palm bowing slightly to Ranma then moved into his own katas.

Ranma nodded back and continued, the two of them silent as they move worked through their exercises.

Their silence was broken by a chattering female voice, apparently continuing a long strung out conversation to someone else. "I hope they have pancakes do you think they should have pancakes they should always have pancakes, pancakes are the food of the gods! I'm going to have twelve, no 15 of them, we're going to need our energy for this, even if you know we're so great, your you and you know I'm me!"

Ranma and the still silent student exchanged a glance, then shook their heads as one and moved back into their katas ignoring the chatter. Soon enough the source came into sight, an orange haired girl dressed in a pink and white skirt and blouse who was leading a sleepy looking young man with black hair in a Ren suit.

Soon after that however Ranma finished, and bowed once more to his fellow martial artist. The other man stopped his own katas and bowed in turn far deeper than Ranma had, having recognized that Ranma's skill was well above his own. The heretofore silent student asked "Freshman?"

"Nope, teacher. I'm Ranma, you might know my sister."

The other man nodded tapping his chest. "I'm Fox. See you around."

And with that he walked off, making Ranma smile. "A man of few words." He shook his head moving off himself eager to get a shower before changing into his new Hunter outfit.

Behind him, Pyrrha came out of the auditorium, stretching and rubbing at her eyes, before looking around sheepishly hoping no one saw her. One of Pyrrha's best kept secrets was that she was **not** a morning person, and always had trouble waking up. She'd already had to threaten to scalp Yang in her sleep to keep the blonde from taking a picture of her that morning when she woke up, Pyrrha had no wish to so threaten anyone else.

She stopped after a bare second however seeing a familiar looking backside moving away. She was about to call out to Ranma smiling happily at seeing another of her friends here at Beacon, before her stomach rumbled and she looked down at it, frowning. When she looked up again Ranma was gone.

 **OOOOOOO**

Beni yawned theatrically, stretching out her shoulder muscles and looking over the table at Glynda. "That was brutal. The next time I volunteer to watch the initiates spank me would you?"

"Now why would I do that when it gets **me** out of doing it?" Glynda said, smiling at her and showing more emotion than she normally would allow anyone to see, before sipping at the tea Beni had made the two of them gratefully.

"We should get Peter to do it then." Beni replied laughing lightly. "If the kids aren't trying to sleep by 10 o'clock say we could tell him to start telling one of his stories. That'd put them right out."

"I should take offense at that for my fellow professor's sake, but I won't." Glynda replied dryly. "Instead I suggest you go pick up a Ranma, Headmaster Ozpin will want him at the Cliff face for the initiation."

Beni nodded and moved off towards Ranma's room down the hallway. After knocking and hearing a 'come in' she opened the door, stopping momentarily to raise an eyebrow. "Huh, interesting."

Ranma turned to him, strapping on his shield on what one arm, and smiling as his fingers flexed slightly, looking down at the much more streamlined mono wire container on his forearm. "Yep, I figured that since Ozpin had given me a retainer I should use it to rearm myself. Though I still haven't figured out a long-range weapon for myself."

"That wasn't what I was talking about." Beni replied shaking her head. "You clean up very good, don't you Ranma?"

"If you say so." Ranma said with a shrug. "By the way, do I have time to go say hi to a few friends?"

 **OOOOOOO**

"I don't need to break out of my shell, that's absolutely ridiculous!"

Yang sighed, rolling her eyes at her younger sister's childishness but couldn't think of any more words to encourage her to try and make more friends. She was about to give up and tell Ruby they should go find Pyrrha and Jaune when a voice spoke up from along the locker aisle. "You know Bad Girl you really need to work on giving your sister some actual encouragement. It doesn't seem as easy as it was to throw those cops around the other night."

Eyes lighting up at hearing Ranma's voice Yang turned with a smile, only for her thoughts to come to an abrupt halt. _Ooooh my…_

Ranma's new combat uniform consisted of a tight black shirt which hugged his upper body like a second skin which the twins had helped pick out for him. Over this he had a chest plate which covered his upper chest, leaving his core bare to allow for more flexibility, something he and Beni had chosen. Below that he wore black pants with thigh guards on his thighs and heavy combat boots. The chest plate was sky blue with a stylized white and gold griffin on the right chest plate, its wings flaring and it's beak open as if caught mid-warcry. At his waist he had what looked like a short hatchet in a holster hanging at his hip.

On the other side he wore a circular shield on his arm, its drab metal unadorned, utilitarian in the extreme yet radiating a certain toughness and age. On his other forearm was a small forearm guard with a slight raised section on the back of it, sloping to merge into the back of a glove that covered his knuckles slightly. There seem to be small apertures on the glove right below each knuckle and small rings marked the end of the glove along each finger right below that.

While Ruby seemed to try to be figuring out what kind of weapon that was Yang was trying hard not to stare at Ranma's abs, visible below the chest armor. _Mhmhm, mama likes._ More than one girl around them was also blushing, taking in Ranma's new combat uniform and more than one boy stared at him, then down at their own stomachs, little storm clouds forming over their heads.

Seeing the other girl's reaction, Yang scowled and tried to figure out a way to make her possession of Ranma clear without scaring him off. She'd gone over their flirtations during the pizza meal a few evenings ago and realized she'd come on a little too strong for him. That was a bit of a turnoff if she was honest, Yang preferred it when guys could flirt back with her.

And though Ranma tried it was obvious he wasn't really at home with flirting except, strangely enough, when he was in combat. That was kind of weird to Yang, but she could roll with it, and the rest of the package, especially how he was with Ruby, was more than enough to still interest her without him being able to play the flirt game.

With that thought she moved forward, smirking up at Ranma. "So Bad Girl huh, is that my new nickname? But what are you doing here anyway? Ruby said that Professor Ozpin asked you to come here, so are you a student or what?"

Ranma smirked, but didn't move away and Yang inwardly fist-pumped in celebration as he looked from her face down to her chest for a brief second before concentrating on her face. _So he's definitely interested, it isn't just friendship or the rush of combat, but self-control. I can work with that, heh, forward full steam ahead!_

"I'm not a student, I'm a teacher here," he said before winking. "And as for your new nickname, I think it works for you perfectly Bad Girl. Or are ya saying you're a good girl now?"

"I can be as bad or as good as you want me to be," Yang said sultrily, smirking as she ran one hand from his neck down his chest plate to his stomach muscles, blushing as she felt them ripple under her finger. _Wow, those feel as good now as they did when we were on Bumblebee._

"I'll keep that in mind," Ranma said now blushing as his nerves gave way and quickly moved back.

Yang smirked, and decided to back off for now, smacking his arm lightly for her, which might have sent anyone without aura to the ground. "Let's keep it at Bad Girl for now, sounds sexy. But I wanted to thank you for your help the other night. I won't say I'm happy about what went down, but that isn't your fault, and you found and tried to help my sister, that earns you major points in my book."

"No problem, it was mainly a communication issue anyway, nothing major." Ranma looked towards the subject of this discussion, who was pouting slightly. "What's wrong Ruby?"

Ruby scuffed her feet a little as she looked away. "Well it's just, I mean we're friends right?"

"Last I checked," Ranma said with a nod. "Why?"

"Well if you're a teacher, then you can't be our friend can you?"

"Who the hell said that?" Ranma laughed. "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Ozpin and Glynda, if they expect me to act all teachery, they've got another thing coming!" Ranma smirked, ruffling the younger girl's hair. "As fer you kiddo, I think you need all the friends you can get, bein' two years younger than yer class. So don't hesitate ta see me as friend first and teacher second okay?"

"Okay." Ruby said with a nod and a wide smile, before smacking Ranma's hand away from her hair. To one side Yang beamed at him, putting another tally mark next to Ranma's name in the possible boyfriend column.

Ranma smirked at them both shaking his head. "You two should keep getting ready." He paused looking up around as he heard a familiar her voice then smiled and moved off, waving the other two to follow him.

 **OOOOOOO**

"You know what else is great, Jaune Arc, or as you called me yesterday, tall, blond and scraggly. Nice to know I made an impression on you already Snow Angel." Jaune Arc, middle child, only son and all around ladies man (in his own mind) said, smiling at the really short, but extremely pretty and poised young woman with white air.

"Nice to meet you Jaune, I'm Pyrrha." Pyrrha replied, smiling politely at the young man who had interrupted Weiss Schnee's rather blatant attempt to befriend her for her own purposes. _Oh, why did my locker have to be so far away from Yang and Ruby's? This is precisely why I didn't join them during the headmaster's speech or until after the lights were off last night! Weiss seems nice enough, but her attentions could not be any more obvious if she tried!_

"Nice to meet you too," said Jaune, cocking his head to one side as he looked at the redhead. Something about her was kind of familiar but he shook it off, staring at the cool beauty that had caught his attention first. "So am I still on your mind, and if so would you both like to join my team?"

Weiss rolled her eyes, scowling angrily. "Ugh, Jaune is it? Do you even know who it is you're propositioning?"

"er, other than her name, which she just said, no?" Jaune asked, wondering what he had just stepped into here.

"This is Pyrrha Nikos, she was the top of her class at Sanctum!"

"Never heard of it."

"She's the four-time winner of the Mistral regional tournament, a new record!"

"Cool, but again, never heard of it. Don't think the Grimm'd be very impressed either." Jaune replied, wondering why this stuff was important, his big sisters and parents certainly hadn't ever mentioned Sanctum or this regional tournament before. Furthering his confusion Pyrrha smiled wider every time he answered. _What's up with that?_

Weiss on the other hand seemed angrier every time he spoke. Waving her arms angrily at her side she yelled, "She's on the front of every Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box!"

Now that made Jaune gasp, and he pointed at Pyrrha in shock. "Wait, that's you on the Pumpkin Flake's box?! I thought that was only for cartoon characters! My little sisters' love that stuff, but they're so bad for you my parents don't let any of them have it more than once a month."

"Yes they are very bad for you." Pyrrha said her smile slipping slightly. "I didn't know that when they offered to sponsor me in the last tournament, but I hear they're trying to come up with a new healthier variety." Then in an effort to change the subject she asked, "So where were you trained Jaune?"

Jaune sobered abruptly, frowning and looking away. "I was originally trained at Semaphore until it went down. Then I was home schooled by my older siblings and parents." He shook his head angrily. "Whenever I could convince them to train me anyway, long story there, don't want to get into it."

The word Semaphore seemed to still all noise around them as Pyrrha looked at him in shock. Jaune looked around self-consciously, scratching at his hair. "Yeah, that's kind of why I don't often mention it."

"I think ya should be proud of it Jaune," said a voice from behind Pyrrha and Weiss. They all turned and saw Ranma, Yang and Ruby coming around the edge of the rows of lockers, with Ranma in the lead smiling at Jaune. "You stared into hell and decided ya want to make a livin' out of facin' it. Only a few of the other students made that decision, and it says something about ya that you did."

Looking at his first and heretofore only student Ranma's smile widened into a grin. "Congratulations on getting into Beacon, I heard about it from your family's answering machine when I called a few months back. 'Course at that point I had no idea I'd be here too, but meh."

The girls both turned, and Weiss actually flushed a little as she took in the **man** standing behind them, no way could the person standing there ever be considered a boy. Pyrrha also blushed for a moment, staring at Ranma's abs as Yang had, but her attention was grabbed by the shield he was carrying, wondering what kind of combat style he used with it. That and why he was here in the first place.

Before either girl could speak up however Jaune scowled angrily pointing a finger at him and moving between Pyrrha and Weiss to poke Ranma in the chest with an angry finger. "A few months back, a few months back and you didn't even leave a damn message!? We had to hear about you being back from the wildlands from Beni, and even then you hung up on her! And I hear that you didn't even think of contacting us to help you get a Hunter's license? You had to work as a bouncer or something? What the hell Ranma!?"

"Don't be like that Jaune." Ranma said holding up his hands placatingly, not noticing that Pyrrha was now staring at his shield even more intently, her emerald eyes narrowing in thought. "I tried to contact yer family after I got back from the wilds, they didn't exactly have service out there y'know and…"

"You tried **once** and then forgot about us!" Jaune interrupted angrily. "I understand you couldn't contact me, us I mean, when you were out in the wilds but what about since then? You let your damn pride and your need to be independent force you to deal with criminals instead of ask for help. Newsflash Ranma, you've got friends who could've helped you out, letting your damn pride make your decisions for you is going to get you into trouble even you can't get out of one of these days!"

Jaune was actually paraphrasing something his mother and Beni had both said more than once at the party his family had thrown when they learned he had gotten into Beacon. He hadn't actually been worried about Ranma so much as pissed off his friend/trainer/role-model (though he'd die before admitting that last one) hadn't tried harder to get back in touch with him after once again being able to. That really stung.

"Alright I'm sorry…" Ranma said, looking away. "I'm not used to people actually wanting ta help me like that I suppose."

Jaune still glared at him, but fell silent for a moment, allowing Yang to ask, "How do you two know one another?"

"Ranma went to Semaphore like me, in fact…" Jaune suddenly smirked somewhat evilly, looking around at the dozen or so students around them. "He didn't just go to Semaphore. He was the Azure Warden, the last Hunter standing in the evacuation!"

"I'm the-what now?" Ranma asked cocking his head as everyone in hearing range gasped. Many of the onlookers quickly grabbed out their scrolls, raising them to either look at something on them or take pictures, while Ruby's eyes began to sparkle her hands coming together in front of her chin as she stared at him

Yang and Weiss were both among the gaspers. Pyrrha wasn't. Her eyes widened, and her weapons shifted a little in her hands as she moved toward Ranma slightly. The Azure Warden had been one of her goals for years ever since that video was uploaded onto the Rem-net. Indeed she had stylized some of her own offensive shield techniques afterwards after it.

Of the others Weiss recovered first, shaking her head and putting her hands on her hips, almost glaring at Ranma's confused face. "You can't be serious, he can't be the Azure Warden! The Azure Warden was a Hunter who…"

"No," Yang interrupted her, shaking her head. "The rumors I saw online said he was a student. I mean that's the only part everyone agreed on, don't get me started about all the rumors about where he came from, or what his parentage is supposed to be, some people have way too much time on their hands."

"Well the rumors were wrong!" Weiss said angrily turning to glare at the taller girl. "There's no way a student of a preparatory school could be that good!"

"Excuse me?" Ranma held up his hands once again. "What are we talking about here?"

Jaune grinned and held out his scroll. On it there was a video ready, and he hit play showing a few moments of that last, desperate battle on the airfield, the last few Hunters doing their best to defend the last thousand or so refugees.

Ranma stared at it, touching his forearm at one point as he watched his old mono-wire container get hit by the acid from the Great Spitter. "You know, I don't remember most of that battle," he said to himself, his voice soft as he shook his head, his eyes and mind miles away. "It was… it was mostly instinct you know…and a bit of a berserker fury, there was definitely a bit of that in there too."

He trailed off watching until the end in silence, which was interrupted by a smirking Yang who was unwilling to let the atmosphere get too serious. "So is that really you? What's up with that blue fire anyway? Is that your Semblance?"

In response Ranma held up his shield hand and suddenly blue fire began to flicker over it, giving no heat but creating light. "Not exactly, and yeah, I can do it. It's a hell of a lot easier these days than it was then."

Ranma shuddered, remembering his training with Spring. She had been almost as bad as Cologne when it came to being a taskmistress, but nowhere near as insane in her methods. "Back then I don't think I coulda called it up if I was trying to outside of that life or death battle, now it's as easy as breathin'."

He looked around, frowning as he noticed some of the looks he was getting, not from the girls directly near him, but the other students within here range. They were all looking at him like the girls back at Furinkan sometimes did when his fiancés weren't around, only many times worse. _Oh crap, do, do I have fangirls now?_

Pyrrha's eyes were almost sparkling as she stepped forward, her mecha-form weapon Milo in one hand and her shield Akuo ready on the other as she politely, but very firmly, pushed Jaune to one side to stand directly in front of Ranma. "Ranma, don't take this the wrong way but I really, **really** want to challenge you right now!"

Shaking off his concern about the other girls Ranma laughed, stepping forward to stare at her to which she did the same, his eyes locking on hers. Their bodies were so close now they were practically touching. "Are ya so eager for someone to knock you off that pedestal of yours?"

"I always wish to challenge myself, and don't think you would have it all your own way! At the very least, I think I could surprise you, maybe even match you, especially if that hatchet and your shield are your only weapons."

"They aren't my main ones, my fists and feet are. I tend to be a little more hand's on than the majority of Hunters. Think you can handle a little hand to hand?"

"You'll find I'm far better with my own hands than my weapons might suggest, I'm certainly not afraid to grapple with you or anyone else!"

"Well I'm always up for a spar, especially against a new opponent. Unfortunately I think you'll need your energy later today anyway with your initiation, I guarantee I'd wear you out so much you'd have trouble movin', let alone fighting Grimm."

"I am quite confident of my endurance Ranma. I think you'd find it'd be you who would become exhausted first."

All this was said with bright challenging smiles as the two of them stared at one another, emerald against blue. Their faces were barely 3 inches away from one another and the tension between them palpable, as if one or the other was going to start a fight right there.

That was until Yang said, "Wow, I don't know if you two are about to start making out or throwing down."

" **W-what?!** " Ranma and Pyrrha exclaimed at the same time, backing away from one another and turning to her, their faces flushed. Ranma recovered first, shaking his head rapidly. "What do you mean by that! It was obvious we she was just trying to challenge me!"

"The blushing and the fact that your breathing deepened so much doesn't really help your case there." said Yang rather tartly. She was a little irritated, sure she hadn't actually marked Ranma as hers yet, but she didn't like the fact that he and Pyrrha seemed to hit it off so well. _Looks like I've got some competition, even if the competition doesn't know it yet. Or does she?_

Pyrrha was blushing hotly, her eyes not meeting anyone else's. "That wasn't my intention at all! I was just, I was just overcome that's all! The Azure Warden has been a sort of an idol of mine ever since I saw that video."

Trying not to show that she had thought much the same thing as Yang, Weiss coughed into her fist, looking away as her self-control came back, forcing the blush from her pale face. "So does that mean you are here as a student as well, Ranma, was it?"

"Nope." Ranma said shaking his head and ridding himself of the last of his own blush, trying hard not to look at Pyrrha's svelte, powerful frame, or her legs that seemed to go on forever, or the fact that a moment ago he'd been able to stare right down her top. Not that he had of course, he'd been concentrating too much on her eyes. _Such lovely eyes too, damn it, don't know which is worse, Pyrrha and her innocence, or Yang and her flirty-ness, wait is that even a word?_

Out loud he replied, "I'm here as a teacher. The headmaster felt that I had something to teach you all, which I do. Technically speaking the label for my class is goin' ta be wilderness survival skills, but that's up in the air a little. Frankly I haven't decided what I'll be teaching just yet."

" **Wait** , you're going to be a teacher here?" Jaune interrupted staring at Ranma.

"Yep." Ranma said with a smirk. "Hope you've been keeping up your training Jaune."

"Oh god, what are you going to be teaching us? I realize I'm going to regret asking that." Jaune groaned, knowing that he'd also probably pay for ousting Ranma as the Azure Warden somewhere down the line.

"Wilderness survival tactics, basically how to survive out in the boonies, and maybe some combat tactics meant to keep your profile small out in the wild, as well as what I'd call aura and Semblance training, to help ya use it in any different situations you might face. Maybe some other combat related stuff as well. Glynda agreed I can add that in if I think it's necessary after watching her own combat course." She hadn't actually said that, but Ranma was going to push for all he could get.

"Wait a minute, Goodwitch teaches the combat class?" Yang asked.

"Apparently." Ranma shrugged. "My sister Beni and I had a bit of a set to a few days ago, and she's certainly better than she was in many ways, not as good as I am, but better than she was. Which she attributes to Glynda's teaching. Still, like I said we'll see."

"Do you have any advice for us right now?" Pyrrha asked, desperately trying to get everyone's attention further off what they thought was a flirtatious moment but wasn't. _I, I didn't mean it like that, I'm not that forward! Even if those eyes of his are rather attractive..._

Seeing that he had the attention of not only his friends, but the girl with white hair and another girl with black hair as well as several other students beyond her Ranma nodded. "Yeah I do actually. Three things." He held up three fingers been counted down. "One, always have a backup weapon on you."

Reaching down Ranma pulled out a very small folding dagger from behind his belt buckle. It might've been small, but it was wickedly sharp looking, coming to a needle tip. "This might not look like much, but if you lose your primary weapon, something like this or anything else can be a weapon and a Grimm's eyes're usually a weak spot ya can exploit."

He saw Ruby look away with a pout one her face and rolled his eyes internally. I _hope to hell that she's got some skill with something other than that giant weed whacker of hers, that'd be bad._ "I don' care if ya got a special weapon or how good ya are with it," He said aloud. "If ya specialize like that too much, you're next to defenseless if you lose yer weapon in combat, and **anything** can happen in combat, I can't say that enough!"

That just made Ruby pout harder and look away while Yang sent her a smirking sort of look. Evidently Ranma had tread on old ground there. _Not gonna be the last time in this little tutorial either._ "Second, and this goes for everyone, learn some hand-to-hand skills. If ya lose your weapons you still need something to fall back on. I haven't looked at the criteria for the combat class here, but if you have a hand-to-hand specialist on your team, once you have a team, then get him to train you!"

"Or her." Yang said sharply, holding up a gauntlet clad fist.

"Right or her," Ranma replied hurriedly. "You can't always rely on having a weapon even if you have a holdout. Even the best warriors sometimes lose their weapons." This and Yang's fervent agreement with it caused more pouting from Ruby, and she held Crescent Rose in its portable version to her protectively.

However Ranma also noticed that the other short girl, Weiss he thought her name was, looked irritated, as did the black-haired girl, who was frankly giving him the creeps. There was something off about her, something in her eyes and the way she stood that reminded him of a furry demon from hell. _Could she be a Faunus? I've been lucky so far ta not've run into any furry demon type Faunus before, but I know they exist. Ugh…_

Shaking that thought off Ranma held up his third finger. "The third point I have to raise is something I learned in that battle from Semaphore. Teams are damn important!" He looked over at Jaune who was smirking at him and he smiled. "If ya know me that probably sounds weird since I'm sort of a lone wolf kinda guy, but they are important. Only one team of seniors survived the fall, and it was a team that was made up of people who could cover one another's weaknesses. So when you go through this initiation, figure out a way to play it."

"Play it?" Pyrrha cocked her head quizzically. "I don't understand."

"I don't have any idea how the teams are made here, I asked but all the teachers I've talked ta said they're not supposed to tell me. Apparently they told my sister, and she then told the initiates last year and kind of messed it up last year or something I don't know." Ranma said with a shrug, having heard that from a professor who spoke so damn fast it was like his mouth was performing a permanent Amiguriken when Beni was showing him around yesterday.

"But unless they do something really dumb like pickin' ya out randomly you can figure out a way to make it work for you and get on the team you want to be." While Ruby and Yang exchanged a glance Weiss seemed to smile evilly and look toward Pyrrha, whose smile became somewhat fixed.

But Ranma winked at her, causing her to calm down as he went on. "But **don't** make the mistake of simply making a team of friends you've already made or something like that. You've got three years together on your team, that's enough time to become friends. Right now you need to think about how you're going to stack up with one another in combat."

"And this is sort of 3A: this, right now is your time to shine!" Ranma said grinning viciously even as his voice lowered, forcing his listeners, even those beyond Yang and the others, to lean in to hear him, while around them other prospective students continued to stream out of the locker area.

"It's yet time to show one another what you can do, time to show your prospective teammates how good you are, time, in other words ta prove that you're here and you are a **real** Hunter, not a wannabe Hunter, not someone who's going to be happy just pussyfooting around with the police here in Vale or doing whatever the hell that be great hunters do, but a **real** one. And the only good Grimm is a dead Grimm."

"Will all initiates please report to the overlook, failure to show up in the next two minutes will result in immediate disqualification!" Glynda's voice suddenly from a nearby radio.

Ranma looked at it, wondering if they were being recorded somehow, but put it down to luck for now, not seeing any cameras anywhere. "Guess I've kept ya here too long." He said with a faint smile. "Go out there and remember, knock them dead."

With that he turned and jogged out of the locker area. For a moment all of the initiates who had heard were silent, then they looked at one another. Jaune then began to grin touching the hilt of his sword and the rifle slung over one shoulder, while Ruby's eyes began to gleam in a way that in anyone else would have been called bloodthirsty.

Weiss shook her head, yet one hand was sliding gently over the large, revolver-like portion of Myrtenaster while the rest of the students were either smirking or talking quietly to one another, already taking Ranma's words to heart about seeking out students who could cover their own weaknesses. One orange-haired girl in particular was bouncing in place eagerly.

Unsurprisingly it was Yang who put their feelings into words. "Is it just me, or did he just tell us to go out there and raise some hell?"

Pyrrha chuckled, twirling Milo in one hand, her emerald eyes beginning to glimmer in a way that would have sent many of her opponents back in Mistral's regional tournament running for the hills. "Yes, yes I believe that is what it he said."

Yang grinned, slamming her fists together. "I'm gonna wreck it good!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Finishing his speech, Ozpin stared at the students, frowning slightly behind his coffee mug as Glynda took over. There'd been no visible reaction to his words about their teams being formed today via eye contact. Not even from young Ruby, who from her father's description seemed to be a bit of an introvert. _I wonder why?_ He thought, his eyes narrowing as he noticed that some teens seemed to have moved into groups already. _Interesting, now, let's see what happens if…_

"Before we get to that however, I would like to introduce our newest teacher to you all, since your class will be a sort of test bed for his course. This is Professor Ranma Saotome, formerly of Semaphore fame as the Azure Warden." Ozpin watched as only about a third of the students seemed shocked or surprised, causing a susurration of sound.

 _Ah, so he has indeed followed in his sister's footsteps. Yet really in the long term it works in our favor, so long as certain individuals remain teamed up as I think they will. Though, I wonder where we'll have to host next year's initiation_ _the Grimm_ _in Forever Fall haven't repopulated themselves and won't by then either. Ugh, more paperwork…_

Feeling slightly irritable as that thought hit him, Ozpin smiled behind his coffee mug gesturing at the metal platforms situated along the cliff face with his cane. One of which Ranma was currently standing on. "And now he will demonstrate what I meant by the term 'landing strategy'." With that he pressed a small stud on his cane, controlling the platforms to shoot off one after another, starting with the nearest one, which was the one Ranma was standing on.

But his little warning was enough for Ranma to prepare himself, and he was a master of the Saotome Aerial Style: any and all momentum that came his way Ranma could use to go where he wished in the air. Here he simply shifted his body slightly, standing on the balls of his feet and leaping an inch into the air the instant the platform shifted under him, allowing it to thrust him upward, but not in the direction it was meant to.

Instead he had gone straight up for about forty feet, causing Glynda to stare at Ozpin in shock while Benzaiten simply shook her head. A second later Ranma landed easily right where he had started, his legs bending only slightly as he came down in a perfect landing. "Was that supposed ta do something boss man?"

"Really, **really** want to challenge you." Pyrrha murmured from nearby, having seen what he had done, while Yang and the others simply chuckled. Ranma turned and locked eyes with her again, and she stared back, crouching slightly as if to charge, before pouting, rather adorably in Ranma's opinion, as he shook his head lightly.

Ozpin chuckled along with them, smiling at the joke turned on him. He wasn't without a sense of humor after all. "Ah well, then perhaps the rest of you would like to try your luck. Just remember, you're supposed to land over there," he said pointing with his coffee mug into the Emerald Forest. "You won't be able to pass simply by remaining here."

That brought them all back to the matter at hand, and with a nod Ozpin clicked the button on his cane once more, starting the launch sequence again. He watched as all of them were shot out away from the cliff face, smiling slightly as he heard Ms. Xiao Long, go 'woo hoo!' and the other students making similar noises, until Ruby's shout of 'birdie no' reached his ears.

Once the last student had been sent on his way, Ozpin turned to look at Beni frowning faintly and looking between her and Ranma. "Many of those students looked a little more purposeful than most initiates normally do. Tell me, are we looking at another CVFY Incident?"

Before Beni could answer Ranma shook his head staring out from the cliff at Yang, who was now the only student still in the air. "Coffee sucks. Can't understand why anyone would drink that crap."

"I'm sorry," Ozpin said, turning slowly as if on a pedestal towards him. His eyes began to flash behind his small wire-rimmed glasses. "Could you repeat that for me?"

Ranma looked over at him quizzically for a second before turning back to watching Yang, who disappeared into the tree line as he watched. "I said coffee sucks. If you need that crap to get going in the morning you're not a real morning person, you're just taking it because society demands ya get up, or ya have an energy problem. Heh, it'd be a pretty sad bastard who'd need that kind of thing 24/7."

Ozpin gripped his cane looking as if he was about to attack Ranma but Glynda stepped in, actually smiling brightly for a moment. "I completely agree, and a person would have to be a special sort of pathetic soul to try to spend 30% of the school budget on imported coffee, wouldn't you say?"

"That'd be really pathetic yeah," Ranma said not understand where that came from and not really paying attention, causing Beni to chuckle.

"I feel rather put upon." Ozpin said, sniffing and looking away. "Have you even tried coffee Ranma?"

"A few times, it was disgusting, like I said."

"Yes well unfortunately right now we can't delve into the headmaster's disgusting habits." Beni said, piling on for all it was worth, causing Ozpin to scowl somewhat theatrically. "I think we should start actually watching the initiates don't you?"

At that Ozpin quickly became serious. "You didn't answer my question, are we going to have to change next year's initiation site again?"

"Not from anything I did." Beni said smiling slightly. "Ranma?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," Ranma said, moving over to look over Glynda's shoulder at her scroll, where she was already watching the intake from the video cameras set up everywhere within the Emerald Forest. "All I did was say hi to a few friends, and give some advice. I'm a teacher now right, aren't we supposed to give advice?"

"Oh dear." Glynda murmured, smirking slightly and holding up her scroll to allow him better access, widening the screen to allow Ranma to look at it easier. "That sounds rather ominous, but so long as they don't go out of their way to destroy school property, I don't think I'll mind having a few teams similar to RUST and CVFY again."

"Indeed, sometimes the most troublesome students make the best Hunters." Ozpin said as he opened up his own scroll. "And at least that means this will once again be an interesting year."

 **OOOOOOO**

Yang **loved** this, she loved flying she loved the freedom of it, the thrill. It was almost as good as driving Bumblebee or better in a way though she would never dream of giving voice to that thought lest her baby take offense. But out here she had the whole sky to play with, and no traffic, no laws or obstacles to worry about. Using blasts from Ember Celica she kept herself in the air, balancing almost through the air. Her shotgun gauntlets went off each time she started to dip down, pushing her well ahead of the others out over the trees until Yang saw what she wanted, a larger than average tree which had a few sturdy branches sticking out to the side in front of her route toward the ground.

Letting the last blast from her weapon fade, Yang brought her hands forward grabbing the topmost branch and flipping herself down onto the second landing there she leaped down again and again, each impact lowering her momentum until she landed on the ground rolling as she struck then moving into a brisk walk without pause. "Nailed it!"

Yang paused then, pulling off her aviator glasses and sticking them in a specially protected pouch at her waist. There was no need for them here in the shade of the trees after all. "Now," she said aloud, slamming her gauntleted fists together as she had in the locker area. "Let's get Hunting."

 **OOOOOOO**

Pyrrha flew through the air, letting the initial impetus of her launch carry her forward. She allowed her fall to naturally taper off, before throwing her javelin into a tree ahead of her, then used her Semblance to drag herself in that direction, slowing her fall quickly, landing neatly on a tree branch right below her javelin.

She paused there for a moment as she noticed movement below, smiling grimly when she spotted several Beowolves move out of the shrubbery below her perch. "A good start," she murmured to herself, Milo quickly changing into a rifle in her hands. Pyrrha raised it to her shoulder, firing off three quick shots in succession, nailing three Beowolves in the head, putting them all down for the count before leaping down, pulling Akuo off her back as she changed Milo back into a javelin.

She landed feet first, clearing a space around her quickly with a sweep of Milo. Then Pyrrha charged forward, slamming her shield into a Beowolf's face sending it flying backwards. In her other hand Milo became a short sword and she stepped sharply aside from another Beowolf's lunge, stabbing it in the side. Before Pyrrha could turn to face the other four remaining Beowolves a loud "Brapp' of a gun on fully auto went off and all four of them fell.

Jaune stepped into the small area around the tree, it wasn't big enough to be called a clearing, and smiled in her direction but refused to make eye contact as Pyrrha had expected given the brief discussion among the initiates as they walked to the cliff. In his hands he held a long rifle with a large magazine sticking out under the barrel.

"Jaune Arc," he said formally smiling. "I would say I'm more of a tank and midrange specialist than anything else, I'm not very good at sneaking around, and I don't have the eye for long-range sniping. But my aura is **monstrous** even for my family, and we're kind of known for it. I can deal some damage close in too, my sword has an edge you wouldn't believe and I've got some training with it but I wouldn't say I'm a master or anything."

"Pyrrha Nikos." The redhead replied, said smiling in his direction but like Jaune not making eye contact. "I am a decent enough sniper, though my preferred range of combat is short range, I like to face my enemies head on. I'm not so much of a tank as in I don't stand still and simply take my opponents blows I'm very much a mobile sort of fighter. On a team I suppose I would be the skirmisher, though I could fill in as a sniper as well of course."

For a moment after they both spoke there was silence, and then Jaune rubbed his nose with one finger looking out into the words. "So, should we do like some kind of zigzag pattern and just kill any Grimm we see, or should we try to be subtle about this and move quietly and take them by surprise?"

Pyrrha laughed, shaking her head her, ponytail bobbing for a moment from side to side. "I don't think that second option is available to either of us. I'll take to the tree line, and you can make your way along the ground, we'll start with me in the sniper position for now then switch off?"

She made her ideas into suggestions, not really wanting to put herself forward much. But Jaune merely nodded agreeably, spun in place with his eyes closed, then pointed in a random direction and began to walk off.

The two of them made their way off through the woods still not looking at one another's faces. After another few moments of silence Jaune asked, "So er, I guess, tell me about yourself?"

 **OOOOOOO**

For a moment all four of the teachers watching on the bluff were silent, then as they began to notice a trend Glynda and Ozpin turned to Ranma. "Ranma, do you know of any reason why some of our pairs actually haven't become such?"

"I still don't know what you're talking about," Ranma said smirking a little. "Why, does it matter?"

Unseen behind his mug Ozpin scowled a little, while Glynda chuckled. "It might not matter in the end," she replied. "It just means that some scheming has not gone immediately the way it should."

"There is still hope." Ozpin replied calmly. "I have faith that the vagaries of combat will at least force them to conform to our rules of first eye contact."

Ranma shrugged again not caring what the heck they were talking about. Ozpin actually had rigged the launchers so that students he felt would work well together or become friends easily would land near one another. In some cases it was simply that easy, in others, he had more hidden motives.

In Pyrrha Nikos' case, he wanted someone paired with her who would, while being a good friend to her, yet also not be someone who would challenge the mindset he had discerned she had. For the good of the world such a mindset would be necessary in the young woman in the future if the Atlas technicians truly did come up with a way to transfer auras. Ozpin didn't like having to think like that, and well knew it might blow up in his face, but at the moment, with one of the four Maidens in such straights and the others in hiding or unaccounted for, he could not see any other way forward.

Ranma reached forward tapped the screen enlarging one picture for a moment. "Little Red Riding Hood and the white-haired girl, that's an odd combination. Why'd you want that one Ozzy?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Ozpin said looking away. "And don't call me that." All three of the others stared at him blankly before shaking their heads and looking back down at Glynda's scroll.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ruby kept her attention firmly fixed on the weapon that Weiss was holding rather than her face, shaking her head irritably. "Look, I don't like the fact that we met up any more than you do." She scowled a little, now staring at the other girl's shoulder. "Even if I think you and I could get along if you just gave me a chance! I've already apologized several times for that explosion, and I wasn't the only one that was making so much noise last night!"

She heard Weiss huff, but refused to look at her face as she went on. "But that's not the point right now, the point right now is to show one another what we can do! I want to show you and **everyone** else here that I belong here! So are you going to be a sourpuss and flounce off, are you going to get into the swing of things?"

Weiss scowled, looking away from the slightly taller, younger and bustier girl. _Darn it, only 15 and she's got a chest like that! And she doesn't even realize it. Of course with a sister like that blonde it makes sense. I know intellectually I shouldn't be overly concerned given my own older sister, but Winter was showing growth at around…_ _Wait, she's right this isn't the time for that._

After a moment spent shifting her thoughts away from that line of worry, Weiss sighed. "I can't believe I'm even thinking about this but fine! Let's do this! You start."

Ruby beamed happily, still not looking at her. "Ruby Rose! Sniper specialist, close combat specialist. I use Crescent Rose!" She said, flourishing her scythe, twirling it around her in what Weiss was forced to concede was a remarkable show of prowess. "I'm good both up close and at range, and I'm really, **really** fast!"

"Is that your Semblance then, and can your aura sustain much damage?" Weiss asked critically.

"It's my Semblance yeah, super-speed. I can't really take much damage, but I don't need to, I'm a good dodger."

"I can't take much damage either." Weiss said reluctantly. "So if form a team we'll have to find someone who can be a tank for us I suppose. Anyway, you know my name as well. My Semblance is glyphs, I use Aura infused glyphs to create various effects, speed, limited aid in enhancing jumps. I use Dust to creat freezing, fire, lightning, other things of that nature, through the use of my weapon my rapier Myrtenaster."

"How fast are you with them?" Ruby asked quickly. "And how mobile are you?"

"I think you mean how agile, but very. I've been trained exhaustively, and my teachers weren't very forgiving of mistakes." Weiss scowled angrily, touching the small scar she had over one eye. "Like you I really am not built to take much damage, I don't have much aura but I have excellent control over what I do have, and I'm very good at dodging. My glyphs do sometimes need a set up time, but I'm very good with my rapier nonetheless, and I can use my dust equivalent of bullets without any lead time."

"Cool…" Ruby breathed nodding her head. "Okay, so," she said quickly changing her Crescent Rose into its sniper form. "We'll go slow, but we'll take out any Grimm we see at long-range if we can. "But if we're ambushed, I'll take the front position while you set your glyphs up."

"Good, but we'll have to think of a way to tell one another which Grimm in any given pack we're going to aim for. We don't want one to be overwhelmed and others to get close or worse get in our own way," Weiss said critically.

"Ooh, how about some kind of secret signal!" Ruby said bouncing up and down eagerly. "That's a cool idea!"

"No you dunce, just something simple like shouting left or right." Ruby pouted and Weiss looked away quickly. _So cute! Must resist!_ "Come on, let's get going."

The two of them moved off in a random direction through the woods, silently for a few moments then Weiss asked, "by the way, how exactly did you skip two years anyway? I overheard your sister mentioning it, but didn't hear anything about it."

"Heh, well, that's kind of a weird tale. Erm, do you follow the news much?"

 **OOOOOOO**

"Okay, I'll admit they handled that a lot more maturely than I had feared given how the met." Beni said smiling slightly.

Ozpin smiled as well, pushing his glasses up his nose for a moment. "Sometimes all it takes is communication, and the threat of combat of course."

"I'll go with the second one over the first any day." Ranma said dryly. "Though I will say that Weiss at least surprised me there. There's a little more to the Ice Queen then I thought."

For several moments they continued to watch the students noticing several others making their way through the woods hunting Grimm or coming together into impromptu teams as they went. After a moment Ranma frowned, beginning to tap at Glynda's screen, moving quickly through the cameras in the woodlands quickly to the older woman's increasing irritation. "I wonder what's going on with Ba, er Yang...OW!"

As Glynda remonstrated with Ranma over his usurpation of her scroll, the other two merely shook their heads and watched the scrolls.

 **OOOOOOO**

As Ranma and the others on the cliff turned their attention to her, Yang was busy demolishing a pack of Ursa. She wasn't joking around, she wasn't pissed off, she wasn't really showing off, Yang was simply and methodically brutalizing them. Five of them attacked her all at once, somehow finding her by scent or whatever it was that Grimm used to hunt, and she took down one with a single punch to the head before turning on the others.

The last one went down to a punch to the neck, Ember Celica's added shotgun blast blowing its neck into pieces. As the Ursa fell Yang heard a soft clap from nearby. She glanced in that direction, seeing a girl her own age standing on a tree branch

The girl had a pale complexion, almost like Ruby's but not quite as much. Long, wavy black hair with a bow in it topped a very pretty face dominated by intense amber eyes that had a slight angle to them, framed by light purple eye shadow.

Her legs were encased by black low-heeled boots and stockings which were black where they encased their hips but gradually faded to purple as they neared her boot. On the outside of the stockings were some kind of flower Yang didn't know. A silver band on one left arm glimmered as she jumped down from the tree branch, while long black ribbons trailed from her wrists, and a small scarf of the same color.

The black theme continued with a black buttoned vest with coattails, but was broken by a white sleeveless undershirt. Like Yang's combat suite this exposed part of her midriff before white shorts began at her waist.

"Well done." Her voice was a soft, naturally seductive sort of voice, almost mysterious all by its own. "You really went to town on those Ursa didn't you?"

"They were the first Grimm I've run into since I landed, figured I needed to make up for lost time." Yang said with a shrug. "Names Yang Xiao long, you can call me a tank, close in mid-range combat specialist, my shotgun shells don't go far but me and Ember Celica can mess **anyone** up in close range. My Semblance is a secret for now. And you are?"

"Blake, Blake Belladonna." With that Blake jumped down moving towards her. "Scout, mid to short-range specialist I suppose, though I'm not very good actually taking damage. My Semblance will remain a secret for now as well."

"Belladonna oooh Italianic right, the so-called language of love? That means 'great beauty' or something doesn't it? Gotta say it works for you."

"As does yours, Little Light Dragon." Blake laughed.

"What no blush, damn gonna have to try harder." Yang laughed in turn.

Blake rolled her eyes. "Do you flirt with everyone you meet?"

"Not everyone, just the cute ones." Yang replied promptly, letting her eyes trail down the other girl's body in as obvious a manner as possible, even going so far as to add a little leer. "And from where I'm looking you definitely meet the criteria."

"I'd be worried for my chastity if I hadn't seen you staring at the Azure Warden so hard." By that point Blake had moved up to within an arm's reach of Yang, staring over the girl's shoulder as Yang did the same with her.

And she didn't blush or recoil either, which caused Yang's leer to segue into a smirk of good humor as she asked the question. "He's good eye candy, and he can back it up with a lot more too. He even passed the Ruby Test, so sorry if you had designs in that direction, you've got some competition."

"I don't think he's quite my type." Blake replied drolly. "More power to you if you want, though there's that whole teacher thing, doesn't that bother you?"

"Just adds to the thrill Blake, I'm **all** about the thrill."

Blake rolled her eyes, but chuckled nonetheless. This girl was fun, very weird fun, and brash to boot, something Blake normally wouldn't like. Yet she found herself enjoying the banter for some reason. _Maybe because it's so new to me? Certainly no one I knew in the White Fang was like her._

Yang's next comment interrupted Blake's thoughts, bringing her back to the here and now. "So, are you down with this? I was telling the truth back in the locker room, I mean to wreck this joint!"

Her lips curving upwards into a faint smile that showed much more teeth than normal Blake nodded. "I came here to be a real hunter, and I mean to prove it. Trust me I can keep up with any kind of action you can name."

"Ooh feisty! You and I are going to get along great!"

Blake chuckled, moving to stand facing the same direction Yang was, smacking her hip against the other girl's. "I think I'll use you as a meat shield of it's all the same to you. You draw their attention, and I'll come in from behind and hamstring them or something similar."

"Fair enough." Yang said with a laugh. "I do have a little more meat on my bones than you do anyway." She said jutting her chest forward causing Blake to look away quickly. Yang noticed where the other girl's eyes had strayed for a moment, but didn't comment on it or the faint blush on her features, she'd seen such things before even from her own sex so knew not to read anything into it. "Just so long as you can hold up your end."

"You may be sure of that." Blake said with a laugh, and the two moved off with Blake quickly jumping up into the trees again.

Yang moved through the forest, putting some headphones in her ears for a moment. She always enjoyed fighting to music, something she shared with Ruby. As the song Light 'em up began, she laughed, her eyes flashing to red for a moment before going back to lilac. "Let's rock this joint!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma blushed looking away from everyone as Beni looked at him. "I told you, you cleaned up **very** well."

Glynda didn't say anything, resolutely turning away from Ranma looking at her stroll again fighting to keep a light flush off her face. Ranma really was good eye candy in a way, though she frowned after a moment as Yang's words replayed in her mind. "I hope you're not thinking of encouraging Ms. Xiao Long's attention?" she asked sternly.

"Haven't really thought about it." Ranma said with a shrug, still blushing. "I'm not exactly good at that whole flirting thing. Never had much practice." _Although Yang's sure as hell given me a lot of practice since I first met her._

Glynda cocked an eyebrow looking at him askance, as did Ozpin, who despite being straight knew that Ranma had a very good body for such a young man and should have attracted admirers. She looked over at Beni, who nodded, frowning. There was a story there, one Glynda hadn't heard yet, but she figured that enough wine would get the other woman to talk, and Glynda could always come back to this point and make certain that teacher/student relations would get Ranma fired no matter how much Ozpin wanted him here.

The four of them became quiet, watching the other students now rather than the ones Ranma had befriended, noting that several teams seems to have taken Ranma's little impromptu lesson/speech in the locker area to heart just as much as his friends had. More than two/thirds of the initiates were romping through the forest killing every Grimm they found rather than heading straight to where the relics had been placed.

"They're not even attempting to head to the objective," said Ozpin after a moment shaking his head.

"You never gave them a time limit or told them they shouldn't go out of their way to kill Grimm, which unless it's contraindicated is sort of **the** job of Hunters." Ranma said smirking a little as he remembered his own rampage after leaving Spring's cave. "And since they're supposed to be put into teams during this initiation, it makes sense that they show off a little, make sure that their teams can really work together, cover each other's weaknesses you know?"

"True enough, and this will work in our favor in many ways, but it will cause friction between the teams down the road. Those who are not quite 'true Hunter standard' will be resentful towards those who are, and those who are will resent the classes designed for both of them and for the others." Glynda said. She wasn't objecting, simply warning it would cause problems down the road.

"We can handle it." Beni said smoothly. "We did with the second years after all."

"True. Still…"

While the two women continued to talk Ozpin remained silent. Ranma glanced at his scroll for a moment, frowning as he noticed that the professor was studying Ruby and Weiss exclusively once again. _There's something weird going on there, or is he just worried about the Weiss girl? Ain't she some kind of heiress or somethin'?_

Ranma's thoughts were interrupted by a loud shout coming from the words, audible even from here. "Here Grimmy, Grimmy, here Grimmy, Grimmy, Grimmy! Come and get it!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Ren sighed faintly, shaking his head as he worked one of his shoulders after killing a King Taijutu. Using his aura like that took a lot out of him, and he could have wished that a few of the other students he'd run into since this initiation began had decided to stay with him.

But the girls had simply looked at him (not in the face) giggled, and said he was 'claimed territory' before racing off. The guys had simply all shaken their heads and wished him luck. _I know why they're doing it, and I suppose in their place I might act the same. I just wish they weren't so obvious about it!_

Just then he was interrupted by a shout from above, the same shout Ranma and the others on the plateau had heard. He looked up smiling faintly as Nora flipped herself down from an overhanging branch staring him directly in the face, Magnhild in one hand. "What, no sloth call?"

Nora grinned. "Nope, not needed." Then she reached forward, her finger touching Ren's nose. "Boop."

Ren chuckled shaking his head. "So much for that plan." He then sighed, smiled and brought out Lotus Flower, his small submachine guns. "Shall we?"

 **OOOOOOO**

After several hours of making their way through the forest, killing several dozen Grimm and occasionally meeting up with other students doing the same, Jaune and Pyrrha had found themselves near another cliff face, staring at some drawings next to a small cave. The drawings seemed to depict several primitive hunters fighting a large scorpion, which was obviously meant to be a Death Stalker.

"We really shouldn't…" Pyrrha began, staring up at the sky before back at the cave's entrance. "It's almost noon, and I don't know about you, but I have only the vaguest idea of which direction is north from here, and we might need all the remaining daylight to find the artifacts and get back to our starting point."

"I know but I've got a bone to pick with Death Stalkers." Jaune said grimly, twirling Crocea Mors in one hand, the shield on his forearm elongating quickly. "And we were told to show each other what we could do. Can you truly say we've been challenged so far today?"

"Of course not." Pyrrha replied. "But judging by those pictures, this Death Stalker's going to be very old. Are you sure you're up to it?"

Her tone indicated that **she** certainly was and Jaune laughed. He reached into a pouch, bringing out a small lightning Dust crystal, throwing it up in one hand and catching it as he stabbed his blade into the ground. "Oh yeah, I'm up for it. And depending on its age, this could be a relatively quick fight. Death Stalkers can be tough, but they have their weaknesses just like every other Grimm."

Pyrrha nodded then moved back quickly, taking a position in one of the trees, Milo quickly changing into rifle mode as she aimed towards the cave. "Ready."

Jaune nodded, and through the crystal into the cave, then raced back towards her rolling forward as Pyrrha fired at it just as it disappeared from sight in the cave. There was a small thumping sound of an explosion inside the cave, then nothing. The two of them were just about to give it up as a bad use of a Dust crystal when there was a scuttling noise, a faint roar and suddenly a giant Death Stalker burst out of the ground, its frame much larger than the cave.

While it got its bearings Jaune darted forward, slashing at one of its pincers with his sword. Despite Crocea Mor's ancient steel, he was only able to draw a small slash across the white armor, which told him all he needed to know, as did the ancient marks of combat on it and the fact that the Death Stalker reacted quickly whipping around, bringing its stinger down to bear on him.

Only a last-minute duck to one side saved Jaune from what would've been a painful blow. He saw the stinger impact the ground, and whistled as the ground began to disappear hissing and bubbling. "Right, okay!"

From these clues Jaune shouted, "It's at least an A class!"

Despite generally been called A class most Death Stalkers were really more B-class. It was the fact that they could hide so well and were so good at ambushing that made their rating as a species go up.

But this one was easily truly worth an A grade. It was probably older than most of the ones Jaune had seen during the sack of Semaphore. Its armor was thicker, it's stinger obviously more powerful, and it actually had some intelligence to go with its hunger and combat instincts.

 _And I don't have any or a Dust infused rounds on me to help me kill it. And even then, I doubt I could unless I took it through one of it's central eyes, and I'm not that good a shot._

That too was a reason why the Death Stalkers and the other A class Grimm, even some of the S class, had died as 'easily' as they had during the fall of Semaphore after the Leo's death. Dorothy had allowed all of the students involved in the battle to take as many of the school's emergency reserves of Dust infused rounds as they wanted. Thus armed they were able to penetrate or otherwise overcome Grimm body armor.

 _Still there are other ways to kill a Death Stalker._

Pyrrha was on the same page as Jaune. Her rifle rounds were already flashing out, the speed of her shots almost making it sound as if Milo was a machine gun, aiming for the Grimm's eyes forcing it to use one of its claws to cover its face. But the Grimm was still able to somehow track Jaune, scuttling sideways to face him. "Don't try to break it's armor!" she shouted, "neither of us have that kind of striking power!"

"Agreed, I thought my sword would do the trick, but I'm not strong enough to force it in!"

The Death Stalker came towards Jaune again, and he ducked to one side, then suddenly Pyrrha was next to him, blocking one pincer with Akuo as Jaune blocked the stinger. "I'll guard!" She said smiling as she held the pincer back, straining her arms against it. But Pyrrha was a lot stronger than she looked, not up to Yang's level, but still very strong. "You take the legs."

Jaune didn't respond verbally for a moment, simply pushing with all of his might at the stinger for a moment, then rolling forward allowing it to impact the ground where he had been standing. Pyrrha turned, Milo once again in its javelin mode smacking and slashing at the stinger before she leaped up over the one that she had been straining against, leaping over it to roll on the ground to avoid the other claw coming at her.

But that moment of attention solely on Pyrrha had allowed Jaune to close the distance between where the two of them had been standing and the right most side of the Death Stalker's main body. Before the Death Stalker could realize its danger, Crocea Mors flashed in a broad stroke, aiming for one of it's legs, cutting the thing off right below the knee joint.

GRAHAHAHH!" The Grimm squalled angrily, moving backwards quickly, and bringing its claws around but Jaune pushed off the ground quickly backing up and letting his rifle fall from his shoulder into his hand, bringing it up and hosing the Death Stalker's body on full auto.

Pyrrha laughed gaily, shouting, "Chróno na chorépsoun me to thánato!" (Time to dance with Death!)With that she raced forward, getting close to the Grimm's other side.

Between one breath and the next Milo became a short sword, slicing into and through one of its legs before she raced on as Jaune bolted towards the woods. The Death Stalker turned, trying to decide which opponent to go after and the two of them now both laid down fire, one aiming to the rear of the Death Stalker and the other towards its face. "We've got it confused now, keep it up!"

 **OOOOOOO**

"Nice," Ranma said with a grin. "Very good teamwork. I could wish they'd thought about using the terrain to their advantage better, but still decent teamwork for two people who haven't known eachother for more than a few hours."

"Indeed," Glynda said tapping her scroll and bringing up Yang and Blake, who were currently facing a pack of Nevermore's with a Giant Nevermore hovering above them sending down its steel sharp feathers. "These two seem to have found a much tougher match however. Neither of them are snipers, so don't have the range, I wonder how they'll overcome it?"

"Flashily." Ranma said dryly, once again staring over her shoulder.

 **OOOOOOO**

"We need to get some altitude, take the fight to that big bastard!" Yang shouted, cocking Ember Celica again and letting loose with a shotgun blast that caught a descending Nevermore in the face. It peeled off, showing its neck and side for a moment to the slashing attacks from Gambol Shroud, Blake's weapon, which cut open it side.

That Nevermore's corpse fell to have forest floor, but Blake was forced to switch Gambol to its cloth mode immediately when the Giant Nevermore targeted her with several of its feathers. With it she grabbed a nearby tree branch pulling herself away, while behind her the feathers mpacted the ground like so many thrown spears, and she winced. Those would really hurt, and Blake didn't have enough Aura to survive more than one or two shots like that at best, especially given how sharp they looked. "I'm open for suggestions!"

Yang frowned then leaped into the trees to join her pulling her away. "This way! If I kept my bearings right, I saw some ruins we can use! But let's see if we can thin the flock a little as we go!"

 **OOOOOOO**

While Yang and Blake led what looked like 14 Nevermore's and a Giant Nevermore on a chase through one portion of the giant woods, elsewhere Ruby and Weiss had met up with Nora and Ren in a rather comical fashion. The two short girls had almost literally run into a pack of Ursa, who were disturbed for some reason. The reason, or one of them at least, became apparent when the noise of a loud female voice shouting "Yeehaw!" reached them.

Both stood girls stood and stared along with several of the Grimm as one of their fellow initiates ran past them astride another Ursa. The Ursa in question was howling and bellowing but couldn't seem to get her off his back, and she seemed to actually be spurring it on with blows from a medium sized warhammer.

Weiss shook her head. "Did I just really see that girl ride past on an Ursa?"

"I think so unless we're both having the same kind of group hallucination, which would be kind of weird." Ruby said. Weiss turned to stare at her, but further discussion was interrupted by growls all around them. The two of them quickly turned moving back to back as several other Ursa made themselves known in the surrounding forest. "And it had friends beyond the ones chasing after her." Ruby said lamely.

"Left or right." Weiss asked, spinning of the cartridge on Myrtenaster to a fire container, bringing it up in a guard position.

"Neither," Ruby said, shaking her head as she caught sight of something through the trees. "Fall back." Weiss looked at her skeptically, then what Ruby had seen came into view.

Rumbling out from around a particularly large tree was an equally large Ursa Major. It looked ancient, far bigger than any picture of an Ursa Major Weiss had seen in the past, and it had spikes growing out all over its back. They weren't very long, but they were there and she frowned as she saw them, and estimated how thick it's armor looked.

"Freaking, damn, hyperactive, ADHD, poster child!" said a male voice from behind them, causing Weiss to turn her head slightly, keeping all of the Ursa in sight that she could while also looking behind them. Ruby didn't even bother, simply switching Crescent Rose into a rifle and getting into position to either charge forward or away as quickly as she could.

Behind them a young man dressed in a green tailcoat over white pants came through the woods leaping and running over the ground in a ground devouring pace, but one which was obviously taking its toll on him from his gasping voice and look of anger. However spotting them the boy stopped, and suddenly he was holding two small handguns, each of them with blades coming down from the barrels to stick out just below the bottom of his hands.

Seeing this Weiss shouted "Cover fire to both sides if you can!"

The boy nodded, and raised the small handguns, and when they fired Weiss realized they were small automatic machine guns. He took the Ursas on either side of the two girls under fire, while Ruby nodded, and grabbed Weiss' hand, racing back to the young man so fast that she let actually left in after image.

There she let Weiss' hand go, pulling her sniper rifle back up to her shoulder and in one fluid moved cocked and fired, taking an Ursa in the head right through one of its eyes in a shot that made both of her fellows stare for a moment. The Ursa collapsed backwards in the fountain of black blood, and Ruby shouted, "Thin the herd but keep moving backwards, there's a **big** Ursa Major there, a weird looking one, really, really old looking!"

"Now I'm really wishing Nora hadn't barreled ahead like she did." the boy muttered. He nodded his head cordially to the two girls. "Lie Ren," he said.

"Weiss Schnee and the little girl with the disproportionally weapon is Ruby Rose. Nice to meet you I suppose, though the circumstances could be better." Weiss said, bringing Myrtenaster up and then thrusting it forward. A tongue of flame zoomed along the ground impacting an Ursa and forcing it backwards howling in pain. It reared up, and Ruby's next shot took it right through the neck. The neck was one of the weak points of an Ursa Major, it didn't have any armor on its neck so that the bearlike Grimm could turn his head this way and that.

The Ursa were slow to cross the distance between where they had been gathered around the two girls and where Ren had stood, but Ren's bullets weren't doing any damage, only irritating the heavily armored beasts with minor wounds where they caught them on fur. Then the massive Ursa Major bellowed, and suddenly all of its lesser fellows dropped to all fours rumbling forward in a deceptively quick gate.

"Fire breaks!" Ruby shouted. "Grimm are afraid of fire, it'll limit how they can come at us!"

"Good thinking Ruby!" Weiss shouted. "So long as we don't set the entire forest on fire anyway." Still she did as Ruby recommended. While several of the Ursa stopped, backing away from the fire fearfully she joined Ren and Ruby in laying down fire on the front runners that were still visible.

Moving forward down to all fours the Ursa's necks couldn't be targeted, so quick kills were impossible now. That was until Ruby darted forward, faster than Ren or Weiss could follow. She darted to one side and then came in on a diagonal, slicing across the loose charge of the Ursa, slicing through two of them at the neck without even stopping before coming back in a circle, leaving a path of red rose petals in the air. Once back with the others she transformed Crescent Rose back to its rifle mode and once more began to blast away.

Ren shook his head. "Pull back! Let's get some more distance between us, thin the herd some more before the big, Gah!"

Then it was too late. Showing much more intelligence than most of its kind the Ursa Major had circled around the fires entirely, coming at them from behind and closing quickly through the words, its approach covered by the noise of the battle against its fellows. It reared up from behind them, slashing downwards with both of its front paws, catching Ren in the side and flinging him sideways to crash into a tree. It's other part nearly hit Weiss, and even a glancing blow was enough to throw her to the ground several feet away.

Ruby turned quickly Crescent Rose shifting out of sniper mode into scythe mode. The Scythe whistled around with all the speed she could impart in her arms, but that wasn't much. Ruby's Semblance didn't allow her to move her hands fast, only run fast. The Ursa Major simply ducked its head, slamming its heavily armored forehead into the weapon as the blade came around, and Crescent Rose skittered off his armor.

Pushing himself to one knee Ren took the thing under fire from his double blasters, shaking his head groggily. Ren naturally didn't have a large amount of aura, he focused more on control then quantity, and that blow had nearly gotten through his aura's shield.

Weiss too joined in, stabbing forward with all the quickness of a trained acrobat, coming up and swiftly slashing at the Ursa Major's leg as she passed. Turning she slashed at his back, but the Grimm's armor simply made Myrtenaster bounce off.

The beast merely growled, and quicker than Weiss could have thought it could move its front paw lashed out again almost catching her. She dodged it, then thrust forward with pinpoint accuracy right underneath its armpit, only to watch as Myrtenaster's point only penetrated a bare sliver before being pushed back out of the Grimm's fur. She stared up at the thing, transfixed in the forward thrust position as Ruby shouted her name and began to hack at the thing with Crescent Rose, but it was simply batting her blade aside as it growled opening its maw.

"And **smash**!" Shouted a boisterous female voice and a warhammer slammed into the back of the thing's head, at the same time shooting off some kind of Dust infused round of some kind Weiss couldn't see to add to the impact. All she saw was that it made a pink cloud when it went off, and Weiss wondered how the color had been added to the round.

The girl, who Ren had called Nora earlier, flipped herself over the Ursa Major, landing between the two shorter girls and the onrushing septet of Ursa who were still trying to close with a. "Hi I'm Nora, I'm friends with Ren, we've been friends forever, almost like we're together but we're not really together together you know. Ren you should've told me you were having fun!"

The two shorter girls looked at one another then shook their heads, and Weiss turned quickly, moving over towards Ren in unspoken agreement with Ruby who grinned briefly then disappeared through the trees. Her voice was a shout as she went dopplering away as she moved off at speed. "Nora, hammer that thing and keep it still for a second!"

"You got it Little Red!" Nora said happily, turning and bringing her warhammer around in a flat arc impacting the Ursa Major's paw as it went for her, then coming back and smashing it again and again, pushing it up right and exchanging blows with it laughing all the while.

"So, that's Nora." Ren said dryly, hosing down two of the closing Ursa with his twin pistols, but doing no real damage to them except when his bullets impacted open skin or the side of their necks.

"Do tell." Weiss replied equally dryly, and with that the two of them closed with the Ursa quickly. It was a classic battle of speed and pinpoint accuracy against brute power and durability, but eventually the two hunters prevailed, and the last Ursa fell just in time for them to turn and watch a red streak coming through the woodlands towards the Ursa Major still attacking Nora.

Nora was still happily exchanging blows with it, talking all the while and showing no sign of let up or that she was feeling the strain of taking on the massive beast strength against strength, but it was obvious her blows weren't getting through its armor. Oh, there were cracks here and there on it, in particular around the shoulder blades and it was missing several of its spikes, but she couldn't kill the thing alone.

Seeing the red streak Weiss flicked up Myrtenaster quickly, twirling in place for a moment. A glyph appeared underneath her before shooting forward along the ground to intercept the route the red streak was following. The streak went even faster after passing over her glyph, and there was a sharp shredding sound a few seconds after it passed behind the Ursa Major.

At the same time the streak slowed, then Ruby appeared skidding to a halt as she wobbled in place, Crescent Rose out stretched to balance her for a moment as she tottered in a circle. "Ooohhhh what a rush, I've never been able to go that fast before! I feel like I was on a rollercoaster mixed with a tilt-a-whirl, but y'know, without being sick to my stomach. Ooh going down…" She fell on her butt then collapsed backwards staring up at the sky for a moment and simply gasping trying to get her bearings, hoping that the world would stop spinning if she stayed still.

The Ursa Major had almost been sliced clear through armor and all. All that was remaining connecting its upper body to its lower was a piece of armor on one side, and as Nora watched the two pieces of it started to fall apart. She laughed, shaking her head and moving over to Ruby picking her up like she weighed nothing at all. "That was awesome! I usually like to smash things, but cutting things like that is cool too. Do you like pancakes?"

"Chocolate, blueberry or strawberry?" Ruby asked seriously.

"Any and all," Nora said just as seriously. The two girls looked at one another, then shook hands firmly as Weiss and Ren made their way over to them.

 **OOOOOOO**

"Okay," Ranma said thoughtfully. "That was pretty damn impressive. That Ursa Major almost looked like it was close to evolving."

He stared off into the distance, remembering the start of the fight and how fast Ruby had been able to bring Crescent Rose around to slash at the Ursa Major that first time. _Hmm… I wonder if I can somehow train her to be able to use her Semblance with just her arms. If I can, she'd be a Grimm's worst nightmare with that weed-whacker of hers. Heheeheeheeee…_

"Evolving?" Ozpin asked, turning to stare at him thoughtfully, his smile as he watched what might become a new team interact with one another fading as he cocked an eyebrow. "To what would an Ursa Major evolve?"

"I saw it happen once when I was out in the wild. They evolve into these I don't know what the proper name for are, but those spikes on its back become projectiles, and the armor hardens and gets more of those red veins on it. They're smart too, not up to a Leo's standard, but pretty smart."

"So there really was a Leo involved in that attack on Semaphore?" Ozpin asked and Glynda looked up sharply. Leo's were, while not the most durable of S-class Grimm, one of the most dangerous to Hunters, simply because most Hunters could not deal with their speed and intelligence. Let alone the pack leader factor, which made any other Grimm in the vicinity fight harder and stronger.

"Didn't Beni tell you?"

"You told me about it briefly, but remember I didn't see it for myself." Benzaiten said with a shrug.

"Oh right. Yeah it was there, I killed it, but only after it had killed several of the teachers."

"Interesting." Ozpin said. "And I believe you were describing what is known as a Jambavan. It's armor and durability isn't up to Goliath standard, but it's smarter, faster and much, much more aggressive, and has those shooting spikes, though like a Giant Nevermore it has a limited amount of them. Luckily…"

"Luckily it don't work well with others, and even hunts other Grimm. So while Goliaths come in herds, Jambavans will only come in singletons, or at the head of small groups of Ursa." Ranma said. "I've seen one in the wild."

"Yet another reason that you will be an excellent teacher here." Ozpin said with a faint smile. "I don't think that even Professor Port, our resident Grimm expert, has run into a Jambavan."

"We'll see." Ranma said with a shrug. "I did promise I'd try after all, and you've already paid me, so I'll try my best."

"Just no Genma influenced training exercises." Beni said firmly, causing Ranma to chuckle even as the two professors looked at them oddly for the inside joke.

Ranma turned his attention back to the screen, which showed the end of Jaune and Pyrrha's fight against the ancient Death Stalker. They had been interrupted several times by packs of Beowolves, all of which were scattered, and Ranma used the word with feeling, around the battlefield.

The two of them had done a magnificent job, first taking on the Death Stalker then being able to divide their attention between it and the packs of lesser Grimm. _Solid teamwork, very good individual effort. Not quite up to myself or Benzaiten when we arrived here, but then they didn't have my old man pushing them to go beyond their normal limits._

After a moment Glynda switched to the other teams, going through several of them who had evidently decided they'd had enough fun in the woods, had taken the relics, chess pieces for some reason, and begun to make their way towards the plateau once more. "Why chess pieces?" Ranma asked.

"They're different every year," Glynda said with a shrug. "This year it's chess pieces, last year it was antique coffee mugs, the year before that random signed memorabilia of pre Colors Revolution bands."

"Interesting," Ranma said dryly. "I'll note not to look into any deeper meaning there then, just wonder what the teen's'll think."

 **OOOOOOO**

It had taken a while to take out all of the regular Nevermore, but they'd done it, and then had finally brought the Giant Nevermore down. Thanks to Blake's Gambol Shroud and her ability to fight in midair they had been able to injure the thing right under its wing, one of the few places on an Alpha where it's feather armor could be penetrated.

Once on the ground, Yang dealt finished the Giant Nevermore in no uncertain manner, smashing its head in up close and personal in an orgy of destruction that left Blake gaping at Yang for a moment and her panting for air. After a moment Yang stepped away from the now decomposing corpse, chuckling quietly, trying to think up a pun and finally having to settle for a rhyme instead. "Heh, well that's one pack of crow's that's been murdered! What's next?"

Having recovered from her own exertions while Yang was finishing off the Giant Nevermore, Blake chuckled quietly, shaking her head at the other girl's irrepressible attitude as she moved to stand behind her. "Heh, agreed, though next time I think we need to bring a sniper to the party, fighting a running battle like that wasn't exactly fun for me."

"So says the one who could hide and disappear in shadows, I had it way worse babe." Yang said turning to her with a smile. She met Blake's eyes for the first time, causing Blake's to widen before she smiled imperceptibly and nodded her head quietly, causing Yang's smile to brighten noticeably. "Proud to be your partner Blake Belladonna." said Yang holding out her hand.

Blake nodded, and clasped her hand smiling slightly. "You too."

For a moment they simply grinned at one another, or at least Yang was grinning, Blake had a faint but very warm smile on her face. Then Yang looked around sheepishly. "So, which way are the relics from here again? Don't know about you, but I think I've shown all I want to on the first date."

"Heh. Actually I think were rather close, this way." Blake said, leading them away from the tower overlooking the deep crevasse and the tall tower where they had finished the Giant Nevermore.

The two of them took their time, both of them rather tired out from the recent battle, conserving their energy just in case they needed it again. Their running battle against the murder of Nevermores had taken more than half the day since the initiation had begun, and both were physically exhausted. Blake too knew her Aura was running out, though Yang still seemed to have a lot in reserve.

Thankfully they didn't meet anyone else or any other Grimm until they found the small ruins where the relics were. "Chess pieces?"

Yang looked at Blake, something in the other girl's tone having warned her. "Blake?"

Blake looked at her in surprise, wondering how the other girl had gotten to know her so well after so short a time to notice her concern. "Oh it's nothing. I'm just not certain I like the connotation of chess pieces. I prefer to think of myself as a player rather than a piece."

"I like to think of myself as a player too," Yang said with a grin, bumping her shoulder against Blake's. "Don't hate the game babe!"

"You know what I mean," Blake said, rolling her eyes more at herself than the blonde. _I walked right into that one darn it._

"Yeah I can see where you're coming from I suppose." Yang said as the two of them strode forward, still checking their surroundings just in case, despite the forest opening up considerably here among the ruins. "I've never been much of a chess player myself, pokers more my thing."

"I'm going to let that one slide because I am a bigger person than you." Yang laughed and by that point the two of them had reached the chess pieces. They both noticed there weren't many left, only the Rook and Knights remained of both colors. "So do you want to be a princess in a castle, or do you want the cute little pony?" Yang asked.

Blake rolled her eyes once more but smiled. Yet again Yang's ebullient personality simply brightened her day. "Go for the cute little pony. That'll knock something off my preteen bucket list anyway."

"Hehe, mine too. I wonder, if it's a genetic thing that all girls want ponies? Just glad it's something we usually grow out of. Although that Sneeze girl, she's probably the only girl in the school who might actually've gotten a real pony at some point, heh wonder what owning a real one's like."

"The real things are probably not nearly worth dealing with if you have to clean up after them." So saying Blake turned away from Yang staring out into the trees, causing Yang to turn same direction.

A moment later Pyrrha and Jaune came out of the woods into the clearing, causing Yang to wonder how the heck Blake had heard them coming. _Girls either got really good hearing or eyesight to see into the woods like that, just one more reason my partner rocks. Still gotta wonder how she did it._

Putting that minor mystery to the side Yang waved a hand jubilantly in the air. "Hey P-money, over here!" Smiling at the two girls Jaune and Pyrrha made their way over quickly, feeling safe enough now to put their shields away for the first time since they had landed in the Emerald Forest.

Pyrrha's smile widened as Yang looped an arm over her shoulders while the blonde bombshell exchanged a fist bump with Jaune. "So children, did we have fun?"

The redhead giggled, once again affirming to herself that coming to Beacon Academy had been one of the best ideas she'd ever had. _Several new friends, two of whom are boys and class hasn't even begun yet!_

Thinking that, she returned Yang's one-armed hug nodding her head slightly. "We ran into a true A-level Death Stalker and several packs of Beowolves before and during that clash. It was most exhilarating, completely different from any kind of combat I've been in before!"

"Fighting in a woodlands like this was interesting." Jaune said, smiling faintly, though it was more interesting for him than his partner if he was honest. Despite his monstrous aura, Jaune was exhausted, while Pyrrha, who hadn't been hit that often and moved almost constantly, looked practically fresh. Her skill was also incredible, and her footwork was fantastic. It was almost as if she was having the time of her life out there, not really exerting herself. And even now she looked almost ready to run off and find some more Grimm.

Ignoring the slight feeling of inadequacy that comparison engendered, Jaune went on. "I hope that one of the classes teaches us how to use terrain to our advantage in combat like that, I think it could make or break fights sometimes, at least it would've made this last fight easier."

"It did for us that's for sure. If I hadn't seen some ruins or Blake come up with a plan we could use to get some air we'd still be fighting a Giant Nevermore. Personally I want someone to tell me how the heck those things keep on making those feather spears of theirs without going bald! There has to be some kind of penalty for that kind of thing right?" Yang replied, raising both are fit hands in the air in an expression of irritation.

"Giant Nevermores are more dangerous than most avians because of their intelligence, not just their feathers, though I think there's some kind of upper limit for how often they can use that feather trick" Pyrrha mused. "That was a good kill of yours I have to say."

She exchanged a smile of respect with Blake, who nodded back, though she looked a little wary of the Mistral champion and the blonde, though to a lesser extent in his case. She was wary of Pyrrha because in some of its valleys Mistral was almost as bad as Atlas in regards to Faunus. In the blonde's case it was because he was looking at her bow for some reason.

Hearing something in the distance Blake turned her head staring out into the words. A few seconds later four other people emerged, making their way quickly towards the relics. One of them bounded forward, not as fast as she normally would go but still jubilant, waving her arms in the air. "Yang!"

"Ruby!" Yang shouted, rushing off towards her sister, causing the other three to look at one another and shrug.

"Siblings," Jaune said with a faint smile as he picked up all of the relics in his hands before moving after Yang. "Trust me it's not something you grow out of." Being only children the other two simply shrugged their shoulders before following him as he chased after the blond bomber.

The two sisters spent a moment hugging one another between the two groups, and Ruby took a moment to whisper into her sister's ear. "You were right."

Yang pulled back from a hug looking down at her with a faint smile on her face. "Right about what?"

"How if I tried I could make new friends here. Don't let it go to your head, but you were right, I've made some already and I wouldn't have if I had simply chased after you or Ranma."

"That'll teach you to listen to me squirt." said Yang, pulling out of the hug completely and ruffling her sister's hair. "I'm always right."

"Sure!" Ruby replied with a laugh, pushing her sister's hand away and shoving her playfully. "Like that time you were right to try and get into dad's liquor cabinet, or that time you were right about there being ghosts, or how about that time you thought it was okay to…"

In response to this affront on her dignity as the older sister (using real life examples against her was cheating!) Yang covered Ruby's mouth. Turning she saw they had been joined by both groups now.

Weiss smiled at them all, sending a particularly bright smile towards Pyrrha. Pyrrha smiled wanly back, waving her fingers gently at the other girl, but Weiss didn't notice this lukewarm response. "Now I suppose we should decide on our teams yes? Has anyone here made eye contact?"

"We did!" Nora said, throwing an arm over Ren's shoulders. "It's only right you know, because we've been friends forever and ever, you can't break up the fantastic combination of R and N, we're like PB and J or pancakes and syrup!"

Ren sighed shaking his head while the other simply stared at the energetic girl blinking then Weiss, who had gotten used so much to the girls antics in the past few hours, simply nodded. "That's probably for the best on many levels." She went on ignoring Ren's put upon face. "Anyone else?"

"Yang and myself." Blake said, bumping her shoulder against Yang, who bumped her back slightly, putting an arm around her shoulders just as she had Pyrrha.

Nora however ignored them, zooming over from where she had been standing by Ren to stare at the number of relics in Jaune's arms. "Oooh shiny!" She quickly snatched up a Rook, putting it on her head and dancing around, looking for all the world like the world's most dangerous trained animal playing with a ball. "I'm queen of the Castle, I'm queen of the Castle!"

"Nora!" Weiss shouted placing her hands on her hips, staring imperiously up at the girl. "Be serious for a moment."

"Be serious as we move." Jaune said, laughing at the ginger-haired girl's antics. "I don't know about any of you but I've nearly run out of ammo. And while I have faith in Crocea Mors, I don't want it to be my only weapon if we run into more Grimm."

"Agreed." Weiss said crisply, nodding her head with more approval than she'd shown toward Jaune previously. "Let's head toward the cliff lace, we can decide on teams as we walk."

 **OOOOOOO**

"So we will indeed have several teams this year like RUST and CVFY were last year." Glinda said smiling faintly as she watched the last eight students sort themselves out. She wasn't adverse to the idea at all despite her earlier worries, in fact she approved of it. Teams that were all willing to train to deal with the same sort of mission I had a much better chance of surviving out in the real world than those with students of, as she put it in her mind 'varying levels of skill and ambition'.

"I believe that the two teams have already formed," Ozpin said, smiling behind his coffee mug, before a thought occurred to him and he frowned. "It will be interesting trying to come up with names for those two groups however."

"I suck at naming things so I'm not gonna even try to help with that." Ranma said with a smirk.

* * *

 **End Chapter**

I didn't want to break up the pairs just yet, but the only four who are still with their original partners for certain are Ren-Nora, because I felt he was the only one who could control her (among the students anyway) and Blake-Yang, because I love their dynamic. Note I'm not going to put those four on the same team unless someone can convince me it makes sense to have a single team have two tanks, and leave the other with none. I am however open to pairing RN and BY with any combination of the remaining four, but I need help in making up names for the teams. Feel free to use their last names if needed, but again I'd like to see some examples please!

Longer chapter than the others for this story, don't get used to it - want to keep the chapters around 20 to 25000 words per chapter. But I also wanted to get through all of initiation in one chapter.

Next month I hope to update ATP, as well as whatever story wins next month's poll, which should be changed in a few hours. Unlike this past month, there will only be one winner because of ATP. This time I was amazed the fight for second place was so close, only ten votes separating this story and My Sekirei cross, but it didn't include Fate Touched, which was sadly left well behind. However going forward after that, I will put up a new poll denoting two stories per month. ATP will not become a monthly story again, not unless my second goal is met - which again should be changed sometime this night. The chapters for that story involve too much research, planning and most importantly, making certain I don't contradict myself (too badly) for me to be able to share a chapter from it every month without devoting far more time than I can at present devote to my writing.

Look for Horse for the Force to be updated sometime tomorrow night, hopefully - some of the scenes kicked my ass, but from here on it should be much smoother sailing.

Hope as always you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did writing it, and as always please leave a review.


	6. Chapter 6

Semblance of Hope

I don't own Ranma or Roosterteeth. Sad but true.

This did not actually win the poll this month coming in third. But since my Star Wars muse did not leave me alone, and the consensus over at my was for this I decided to update this story. This was helped hugely by the sheer number of good fics in this fandom that are actually continually updated or near enough to it unlike the SW universe or the Sekirei universe. Seriously, big tits does not good fics make, and alas the number of good SW stories is rather small too. If you know any beyond the ones in the HP/SW universe (Havoc, Still Haven't, Savior, Jedi who would not,) I would love to hear about them so long as they don't contain OP Naruto. The only one I would say is really good that isn't a crossover is Rogue Knight \- an excellent tale even if it is about an OC/SI. Seriously, if you know any good SW fics, tell me!

As next month is an ATP month, the poll is different of course and for only one story. But since Game Changer actually won this past poll, if Horse or Semblance doesn't win by a wide margin - a 100 votes including my patrons - I will update that story instead.

In this chapter I use a Greek song from a AMV dealing with the Persian Wars, because it has a great beat to it and a very powerful message. Look up ΠΑΥΛΙΔΗΣ-ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ or Ancient Greek battles (Greco_Persian Wars) if you want to listen to it. I found a translation and then tried to translate back to Greek to get the right words, but when I read them out they didn't match what I was hearing, so I just tried my best.

This has as always been betaed by Ultimaflare0.  


* * *

 **Chapter 6 Bad influences, First Classes**

"They're going to be late at this rate." Glynda said thoughtfully, tapping her scroll's screen. Next to her Ranma nodded, having been told a few hours previously that there was a ceremony set that evening for the new freshman where Ozpin would formally announce their new teams and those team names.

Benzaiten had also told him that the older years always got together to made bets on which group of 'new meat' would be the most impressive during their initiation. _This year they're spoiled for choice on that_ Ranma thought sardonically, tapping the image himself for a moment over the group of eight teens who they were talking about. Right now the group had actually stopped to argue about something pointing at various objects at set distances away from them while Ruby seemed almost to be shaking in place, a wide grin on her face.

"What did you tell them anyway?" Glynda asked, frowning before activating one of the nearby audio receptors. The voices of the youngsters came through, and a few seconds later it was obvious that the teens, specifically Pyrrha and Ruby, were about to have a sniper competition.

"I said they should look for people to be on their team who could cover their own weaknesses rather than friends. Friends you can make over time, but if your team has a weakness that's harder to correct."

"Sound thinking," Glynda murmured.

Beni smiled sweetly. "If there's one thing my brother knows its combat." Benzaiten waited for a moment then went on. "Of course it's the **only** thing he knows, but one can't have everything."

"That hurts," Ranma muttered, "or it would if it weren't kinda true."

Glynda smiled faintly at their mild bickering and then looked over at her boss, who was strangely silent. "Professor Ozpin, is there something wrong?"

The professor shook his head, still staring down at his own reader. "Nothing is wrong in particular. I'm just trying to come up with names for the teams. A few of course jump out, but if they follow Ranma's advice, I'm uncertain how they will pair off. The young Arc is still carrying most of the relics after all. I like to have names that at least make some sense."

"However," he went on, looking up at last pushing his glasses up with the same hand which held a coffee mug in. "You are quite correct. It is getting on to time."

"Don't worry, we've got a bulkhead ready to go professor." said a female voice behind them.

The teachers turned looking at the speaker. Benzaiten smiled at Coco Adel, and nodded at the young man next to her. "Ragnar, I didn't hear you were back yet."

"Got in this morning ma'am," said the wolf Faunus, nodding his head toward her. Like Coco, Ragnar was dressed in his battle gear which looked a strange cross between that of a pirate and a Viking warrior. His pants were loose silk pantaloons but he wore a chain mail shirt over a similarly silk shirt, a small buckler on one arm, and a single-handed sword of some type on his back, with a short cross guard but a heavy pommel around the size of a clenched fist.

He had the start of what might one day be a beard, a small black goatee matching the color of his hair, which was cut short in a cru-cut. He had words in an old language that looked like runes inscribed on his arm. Ranma would later learn this was a phrase 'Orlog, Wyrd, Hamingja', the three sort-of-tenets of Ragnar's faith. Sticking out from his head were two large wolf ears, matching the tail that swished beyond him.

"Ranma," this is Ragnar Seabreeze, leader of team RUST. He and Coco here are the team leaders of…" Benzaiten paused looking over at the professor and Glynda who both waved her on. "I would say the two A rank Hunter teams among the sophomores. They're actually nearly to Senior level in combat skill, though the A rank senior Hunters are still a step above them."

"Charlotte, Brutus and their teams, yeah they'd kick our asses in team competitions, no lie." Coco said with a faint laugh. "You won't see them around campus though, most of the time those eight are out in the field, mostly stationed near the border with Vacuo in Brutus' case, and Charlotte and her team spend so much time over in Atlas and Mistral it's a wonder they still go to school here in Beacon at all."

"Whatever," Ragnar said with a shrug, his accent that of a seaman. "Let's go meet the freshies, and get them back here as soon as possible. I know how tired I was after my initiation, and I bet those girls would kill for a shower."

"I know I was willing to," Coco said with a faint laugh.

Benzaiten looked over at Glynda and the headmaster, who both nodded again, and she walked off with the two genes with Ranma following quizzically. Benzaiten noticed his look and shrugged. "Students junior grade or above are allowed to take out bullheads so long as they sign them out, and have a teacher's permission. Sophomores are not allowed to do so unless the teacher is with him. Any teacher however can sign out a bulkhead at any point they wish, providing it isn't already needed elsewhere."

"Interesting…" Ranma murmured, stroking his pigtail thoughtfully.

His tone of voice caught Benzaiten's attention and she turned looking at him worried. "What are you thinking about?"

 **OOOOOOO**

Contrary to what she had feared when she and Ruby had run into one another, Weiss Schnee was actually having fun. Her new friends were all interesting people, extremely skilled Huntresses for their ages, and though none of them were the type she'd like to introduce Winter to, let alone her father, they were still fun to be around.

She wished they could get a move on, but Yang was correct, they needed to sort out this whole team thing now, and it was better to make a decision on their own about it rather than have it forced upon them later. She trusted the headmaster of course, he wasn't known as the **greatest** Huntsman alive for nothing, else Weiss wouldn't have come to Beacon in the first place. But she wanted as much control over her own life as possible another reason she had come to Beacon rather than stay in Atlas and choosing her own teammates was part of that.

 _Although I suppose I could do worse for my own partner, even if we haven't formalized it. She is indeed quite… acceptable as a Huntress, despite her age._ Ruby had explained why she had been allowed to enter Beacon early, and while Weiss didn't agree with the reasoning thinking Ruby was too young and immature (socially speaking) she could understand that in terms of skill Ruby belonged here. _And our combat abilities certainly seem to work synergistically in the field so far_.

Nora, she had a bit of an issue with. The girl was simply too darned hyperactive and random! Her skills were not in doubt, not after watching her go toe to toe with that strange Ursa Major. But Weiss felt that she would go insane if she had to deal with Nora's crazy enthusiasm for all things pancake or hammer related for any length of time. Not even mentioning the number of times she or Ren had to call Nora's attention back to the task at hand, which was getting to the ruined temple, when the girl spotted something interesting. Nora was a very odd cross between a child with an eternal sugar high, a pancake addict, and a powerful warrior, with a light sprinkling of jackdaw on top.

"All right," she said aloud, holding her hand up with her rapier extended above her head, smiling ever so slightly at the two girls who were about to have their third and final round of shooting. "For this round, the target is that small stump at a distance of a thousand yards as measured by our lovely assistants Ren and Jaune."

The girls all laughed, while the two boys rolled their eyes. Yang had been the first one to call them that, but Weiss and the others followed up on it every chance they could. Weiss however ignored their reaction with regal disdain, concentrating on the coming contest. "Ready, steady, go!"

This contest wasn't just for accuracy, but speed from the get-go as well. Both Ruby and Pyrrha quickly shifted their weapons from melee mode into rifle mode, raised them to their shoulders and fired.

Pyrrha had a major advantage in speed. She changed her javelin into its rifle mode, took the shot and changed it back into its xiphos form before Ruby could change Crimson Rose into its sniper mode. However, her bullets were not nearly as heavy, nor did they have the penetrating power of the pure sniper bullets Ruby used.

At the same moment the match started Nora leapt forward, using her hammer to propel her forward through the air following the shots with a "Yeehaw!"

"That is my kind of girl!" Yang laughed.

Blake shook her head a small smirk on his face. "Does that mean you want to change partners already? I'm hurt."

Yang looked over at Blake shaking her head with a faint laugh. "No way Blakey, you're stuck with me."

"Just like a toothache."

"You're still sore about walking into that 'player' joke, aren't you?" Yang asked shaking her head again before turning away to stare over at where Nora had just touched down by the target.

Ren and Jaune had followed after her in a more pedestrian manner, and the three of them stood for a moment talking before Jaune held up his hand. "Both shots hit their mark, but Ruby's was more center of mass and did more damage!"

Weiss turned interested to see how Pyrrha would take this and was surprised by her reaction. Pyrrha's smile, which had been quite beautiful since they had met up if Weiss was honest about it, completely open and far more real than the smiles she had seen in magazines, actually widened slightly as she shook the younger girl's hand. "Excellent shot!" the Mistral champion exclaimed. "I see I'll have to brush up on my skills."

 _I could have used my Semblance but I think that would've gone against the spirit of this challenge,_ Pyrrha thought. _And it's also shown me that I need to work on my long-range skill set. It isn't my preferred distance, but that is no reason to avoid training on it._

Ruby smiled up at the older girl, who was taller than even Yang. "It was nothing, you hit the mark anyway."

"Yes, but if I had been aiming for a Grimm's eyes even a millimeter off would've made my round bounce off its Grimm mask. You and Weiss both said that you were able to shoot the eyes out of a few Ursa correct? I couldn't have done that."

"It was nothing. Like I said before, our uncle Qrow and our father trained both Yang and I since we were little."

Yang nodded, smirking at her little sister. "Yep, though I think Druncle Qrow's had a bit too much influence on you Rubes. He's the one that got her into that giant weed whacker of hers." She explained, turning her smirk on Pyrrha and Blake.

"Hey!" Ruby said twirling and pointing at her sister angrily. "Don't diss Crescent Rose!" She changed the giant sniper rifle into its carrier form, and began to rub her cheek against its smooth metal side, cooing. "There, there baby, did the nasty Yang's words hurt your feelings? Don't listen to her; she's just jealous because she knows you're better than Ember Celica."

"Nothing is better than Ember Celica." Yang said firmly. "And don't look now sis, but your weapon's fetish is showing."

"I don't have a fetish!"

"As amusing as this is, and it is kinda funny Crater Face, we should probably get going again." Jaune said as he walked up to them with Ren and Nora, having convinced Nora to actually walk with them back towards the rest of the group.

"I don't think so," Blake said, pointing upwards as Ruby pouted viciously at Jaune with no visible effect. _Makes sense if he has seven sisters..._ "We seem to have company coming." A second later the others heard it too: the sound of an incoming bullhead.

Ruby began to hyperventilate, forgetting her irritation with her friend and big sister. "W-wait, does that mean we failed!? We, we were supposed to get back to the cliff on our own! Are we being penalized for taking too long, or, or were we supposed to let some of those Grimm live or something? Oh-my-gosh I'm going to get kicked out before I become an official student I just know it!"

"Nonsense Ruby," Weiss said, shaking her head quickly while putting a calming hand on the other short girl's shoulder. "Mr. Saotome told us that we were supposed to showcase our abilities, you don't say something like that and then tack on an unknown time limit later on. There must be some other reason."

Ren spoke up, his voice soft yet carrying, a trick he'd picked up spending so much time around Nora. "I overheard some of the older students in the cafeteria discuss something about a ceremony of some kind?"

Yang groaned as did Ruby. "Ughh, I hope we don't have to sit through another long speech, I got enough of those at Signal, even from our old man! Could the headmaster've just been lulling us into a false sense of security with that short speech he gave us the other day?"

"I doubt that's it." Blake said dryly. "Though I agree with Ren, we're probably just running late. We've certainly shown enough to have earned our places here in Beacon regardless of getting back to the cliff ourselves. They probably just want us to have time for a meal first."

"I would prefer a shower myself," Weiss said sniffing at one of her sleeves. "That fire break at idea of yours worked very well Ruby, but now all of our clothing smells like smoke. I detest even being in the same room as a smoker, I refuse to smell like burning wood myself."

As the bullhead slowed down for a landing Yang turned to Weiss snapping her fingers and pointing at the rich girl. "By the way rich girl, we were wondering Blake and I…"

"Just you," Blake muttered, even though she was smirking as she said it.

"What it was like to own a pony." Yang finished.

Weiss rolled her eyes, shaking her head in exasperation. "How am I supposed to now?"

"Don't all rich girls have ponies?" Nora cut in, looking as if one of her fondest dreams had just been shattered.

"Not this rich girl," Weiss said firmly, before going on more softly as she noticed that Nora and Ruby were both pouting at her now. "I will admit that I did want a pony at one point, and then I was shown how much it would cost, how much of my own personal time it would take up, and my older sister actually brought me to a friend's stable. I did say that I refuse to be in the same room as a smoker? Well that response can also be applied to horses. They smell, and their… refuse… smells even worse."

"Refuse?" Ruby asked, leaning toward her sister.

"Shit." Yang supplied.

"Don't curse," Ruby said, then smacked her own forehead, giggling. "Oh, I get it, sorry."

Yang laughed as did the others as the bullhead set down on the ground. To their surprise none of the professors came out, not even Ranma, instead two older teens came out, and Yang and Weiss both and whistled taking in the appearance of the girl. "Here comes a star down the runway!" Yang whistled, actually putting her fingers in her lips and whistling loudly.

The girl laughed, cocking her head to one side and sashaying forward before gesturing back up towards the bulkhead. "Come on kiddies, we have to get you back to Beacon with enough time to spare for either of the meal or a shower before the ceremony. And this will give us time to tell you all the facts of life here to you."

"This isn't going to be some sort of hazing is it?" Pyrrha asked quickly. "I'm afraid I'd have to refuse on general principle." To one side Ran and Jaune both looked at one another then nodded firm agreement, quickly joined by all the others save Ruby, who didn't know what hazing meant.

"None of that." Ragnar said, tapping his chest for a moment and introducing himself before going on. "It's just something about how classes and everything else work here."

The younger students all nodded, and followed them back to the bulkhead, though Yang stopped when she noticed that Blake hadn't moved, staring at Ragnar with narrowed eyes who was staring back at her. At first Yang thought this might be a good teasing moment then noticed how Ragnar's teeth were clenched, and his ears standing straight up on his head. And was he growling?

Yang quickly stepped between them, Ember Celica cocking automatically, coming down to cover her fists. "Hey! You got a problem with my partner you got a problem with me!"

Blake however shook herself then moved off, putting a hand on Yang's shoulder and pushing her along. "It's nothing, nothing like that anyway."

"Yeah." Ragnar muttered, "sorry, just something about her smell." Then he turned away and stalked back to the bulkhead not even looking back once at Blake, who followed quietly.

She noticed Yang shooting her a concerned look and shook her head. _For someone who I've only known for less than two days Yang can read me too darn easily._ What she didn't know was that Yang was a past master of body language. It started with something her father taught her, how to read an opponent's moves, but with her social nature, Yang's ability to read people had grown over time well beyond that starting point. She sometimes missed obvious things even so, but rarely.

"You sure you're all right?" Yang whispered.

"Positive," Blake said then smiled, smacking her shoulder against Yang's. "He's right; it was just a momentary thing. I have a special scent on me that repels dogs, I had a bad experience with them when I was younger," she said, thinking quickly, "and I prefer to keep them away."

"Ouch. sorry to hear that." Yang muttered, shaking her head then she perked up. "Hey, maybe if I introduce you to our dog you'll get over it. Zwei's a real cutie and he wouldn't hurt a fly! Unless it was a Grimm fly."

"Please don't." Blake muttered, looking away. She was already having issues right now. She **hated** the fact that there were some truths to Faunus stereotypes, but one of them was only too real: that dog and cat based Faunus never got along. It was just something about the smell of their opposite numbers that set them off, even worse than their animal counterparts.

Yang nodded, but sensed that there was more going on here than meets the eye. Maybe the two of them knew one another, and didn't get along or something? After a second Yang put it down as a minor mystery about her new partner, that kind of thing simply added to her excitement about having Blake as a partner in the first place.

The two of them caught up with the others, entering right after Ruby did. As they entered, they heard Benzaiten's voice growl out "All right damn it, I'll go with you tomorrow if it will get you to shut up about it now!" Beni then growled something under her breath, muttering "I'll show you how much I've improved. Slow am I, we'll see about that..."

All of the younger teens looked at one another, then as one shook their heads. A second Later Ranma's head poked out over the small intervening wall between the cockpit of the bulkhead and its cargo area, a small victorious smile on his face. "Hey all, excellent show guys and girls!"

He held up one hand in a thumbs up gesture before going on, grinning and reaching forward to rub Ruby's head where she had sat down directly behind the cockpit. "Weiss, Ruby, I'm proud the two of you were able to work together like that, I know that Benzaiten said you didn't have the best introduction to one another, but you wouldn't have been able to tell you just from your fight. And Nora, riding into a battle on a Grimm, that is the best entrance ever, of all time! I might have to try it sometime."

"Oh goddess, no please." Benzaiten muttered, in the same exact tone Blake had used moments earlier to Yang. "It's not like you need help to make an impression."

Ranma ignored her, going on to explain that the two of them, Glynda and the Headmaster had watched all the initiates. This caused all the students save Blake some shock, the cat Faunus having been the only one who noticed the video cameras scattered throughout the woods.

Of all the students Pyrrha had the most negative reaction to this, scowling as Ranma continued to tell the students what he and the other teachers had liked most about their fights. _I thought I had gotten away from the threat of always being recorded, darn it. I can only hope it is a one-time thing, and that Beacon's anti-paparazzi rules really exist._

She then brightened slightly, her scowl disappearing. _But look on the bright side: at least I have real friends to help me deal with it now._

As Ranma wound down Coco spoke up quickly. "Your fights, or rather your obvious skills is why Ragnar and I are here right now. You see, Beacon's a little different than you what you might expect from a Hunter's Academy." With that introduction Coco launched into an explanation of the number of different classes they all had to take here at Beacon, many of which really didn't have much if anything to do with fighting Grimm.

Hearing that Vale had basically two different levels of Hunters was a shock to Ruby, who had always thought that Hunters only had to worry about Grimm, not other people. That thought worried her a lot, and she wondered if she'd ever be able to treat another human the way she could Grimm, ruthlessly cutting them down. Even during her set to with Torchwick had simply been her knocking out his minions rather than killing them.

Most of the others were surprised too, never having realized Vale had such a policy. Yang was the only one who wasn't surprised entirely, having run into what she thought of as B-grade Hunters a time or two during her search for her mother. Blake, Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren and Nora however had never run into such, but with only Ren and Nora actually being from Vale the country at all, that was no surprise.

Weiss however was from Atlas but she had known this as well, and actually smiled cockily flipping her hair back over her shoulder. "Let me guess, as true Hunters-to-be, we will need to keep all of our grades up? But in return we get special privileges?"

"Pretty much." Ragnar said with a nod, taking over from Coco, ignoring how Weiss seemed to stiffen up when she looked in his direction. As a Schnee that kind of reaction to an obvious Faunus was somewhat understandable, though he was going to try not to judge her in turn by her family's actions.

"Keep your grades up, and you get a lot of leeway in various other areas, such as access to the training areas, in particular Professor Goodwitch's room, you know she teaches the training course right? You're also going to be held to a higher standard when interacting with other students. You can't lord it over them, there was a group of seniors that tried that if last year, and they were penalized heavily for it. If someone else starts something, you can shut them down, but not before"

"You'll get first pick of assignments when it comes time to get some real world experience, so long as the jobs are Grimm related. You get access to the forges 24/7 so long as you clean up after yourselves and can even order in special parts through the Forge Master and have them come out of Beacon's budget." Coco listed then smirked as Ruby's eyes began to glitter. "So long as they are for repairs or if you can convince Master Appleseed it's necessary."

Ruby pouted and the others all laughed playfully at her, while Ragnar spoke up again. "But you are **really** held to a higher standard both in class and in how you act. Just remember that as A-rank hunters and Huntresses, you'll be held to that high standard, and you'll get along just fine here in Beacon."

The younger teens sat silent for a moment digesting this, until Yang spoke up. "So to summarize we've proven how fantastic we are, but we have to keep proving that but we also get special privileges? And while we can't lord it over the nameless peons, if they try to start anything we can smack them down as hard as we want?"

"That's it in a nutshell Blondie!" Coco laughed, while the other teens either laughed with her or groaned at Yang's summary.

A few moments later they touched down at Beacon, and Coco and Ragnar started to lead the group off to the lockers. Benzaiten however stopped as her scroll be better. Opening it she looked to the message within, and looked back up the teens. "Have you all chosen your teams yet?"

The teens all shook their heads, while Jaune, who was still carrying the majority of the relics, shook his head. "We haven't no, we were still figuring out which slot each of us would take up, and some of us don't fit into the normal positions."

"In that case, Professor Ozpin wants to talk to you."

After another forty minutes or so the teens had gathered once again, now showered and, in Ruby and Nora's case, actually fed. Ruby had used her Semblance to take a speed shower, while Nora had declined one, rushing off to the cafeteria to grab a hasty dinner of pancakes.

Soon after the others finished their showers, Ranma and his sister led the eight freshmen into the headmaster's office. There they found Ozpin sitting at his chair one hand holding his scroll and the other kneading his nose below his glasses while Glynda stood to one side. The sight of Glynda caused both Ruby and Yang to flinch, but Beni noticed her sifu looked somewhat torn between amused and irritated.

 _Of course reading Glynda's expression is an art few have mastered,_ she thought, cocking her eyebrow at the older woman. Glynda caught her look and shrugged lightly, eyes flicking for an instant to Ruby before going back to looking at all of the students.

The students stood silently in front of Ozpin's desk for a moment as he continued to pinch his nose in irritation for some reason. By the time he looked up at them, both Beni and Ranma had moved aside, allowing the eight to have his complete attention. Ranma had moved over to the giant windows behind his desk to stare out of them over the school grounds. Beni moved over to Goodwitch, standing next and slightly behind her.

"Ladies and gentlemen, first let me say you are in no way in trouble." Ozpin began, looking up and smiling at the nervous teens. "You all showed incredible skills and very good teamwork out there, indeed if not for last year's initiation it would have been the most spectacular showing in the past ten years. I have no doubt that, even with the strong showing of several other freshmen this afternoon, I am looking at students who will eventually become some of the greatest Hunters and Huntresses of their generation."

Ruby blushed while Yang grinned at the others who all responded with their own expressions of pride or happiness. Ozpin continued on, smiling at them and then over at Ranma. "However, your diverse battles and your plan to, how would you put it, game the system? It leaves me with a bit of a problem because other than Miss Rose, none of you showed the ability to lead a full team."

The teens all sobered save for Yang who grinned proudly at her sister while Weiss looked conflicted for a moment before nodding grudging understanding. "Ms. Belladonna and Ms. Xiao-Long: your teamwork was exemplary but your plan was a combination from both of you, leaving me questioning if either of you could step up as the sole leader of a team. In combat you don't always have the time to come up with a plan with your team, a leader must be able to come up with one on his/her own and follow it as swiftly as possible."

Both girls nodded, knowing their plan had really been a collaboration. Yang had found the ruins Blake needed to get enough hair to close with the Giant Nevermore, but Blake had been the one to come up with the plan to down Grimm while Yang had finished it off.

"Ms. Nikos, Mr. Arc, the two of you actually planned out your attack on the Deathstalker, but after combat was joined you changed the plan on the fly and flew by the seat of your pants, with both of you coming up with plans and carrying them out. While tactical flexibility is a necessity, if you had made a better, more flexible initial plan, you would not have faced so many issues during the battle. For one thing, anticipating that the sounds of combat would draw more Grimm is something both of you should have thought of."

Jaune nodded seriously having realized that during the battle while Pyrrha merely nodded, knowing that would never have occurred to her.

"Does the leader position really matter right now?" Ranma asked. "I mean, they're freshman, and the freshman don't have any leadership only classes do they? Let them figure it out on their own."

"I would like to do that, however, you are incorrect. While we don't offer leadership courses at the freshman level, there are many procedural issues that require a leader to take care of, and two seminars that start in the third semester." Ozpin replied, still smiling faintly. "And even freshman are sent out into the field, albeit on simple jobs and with an instructor. Yet even on those there needs to be a set leader, just in case the instructor becomes separated or incapacitated."

"We have two acknowledged teams so far, YB and NR," Weiss said emotionlessly. She knew that Ruby had truly taken the lead in the fight with the Ursas, so she had no logical reason to be angry at not being considered. But still being passed over for the younger girl hurt her pride. "Both partnerships include one of the tanks among us, while Arc can also serve best in that capacity. It makes sense to separate the two partnerships and build teams around them."

Actually in terms of being a tank Jaune was a better pick than Nora. Nora could deal out a ton of damage, but unlike Yang, she couldn't take a lot. Jaune, with his massive Aura reserves and Crocea Mors' shield could take far more damage than she could. And while not a good swordsman, Crocea's edge gave him the ability to deal out a lot of damage.

"Yes, that does make sense, but the leadership issue isn't the only problem, we have two more. For one thing, the team names." Ozpin said, shaking his head. "Even using your last names doesn't actually extend the choices overmuch."

"Hehee, Team Blake, Ruby, Yang, Pyrrha, team BRYP!" Nora shouted, bounding in place.

"No!" Yanga and Pyrrha shouted while Ruby giggled madly and Blake shook her head. Beni and Glynda both rolled their eyes, while Ranma laughed aloud, earning a betrayed glare from Yang. "You promised never to mention that name again Nora!"

"Or heh, team BRAY" Jaune said, causing even more laughter as Nora brayed like a donkey before nearly collapsing to the floor, even Ren chuckling now.

Weiss allowed a small smile on her face. "I still think WNNR, Weiss, Nora, Nikos and Ren, is the best name, which would actually allow the rest of you to use Jaune's excellent suggestion."

Blake and Yang glared at Jaune who looked torn between horror at his joke being taken seriously, and happiness that Weiss was breaking further out of her aloof shell. Pyrrha had no such ambivalence. Weiss might have improved somewhat during the initiation, but Pyrrha still was leery of her and the first impression she had made of the Schnee so had no wish to be on the same team as her.

The headmaster let them laugh for a moment then cut in. "As amusing as this is, I'm afraid there is also another… complication. You see, as I've just been reminded, at length, the dorm rooms here are coed. And…"

He was interrupted by Yang's hair nearly igniting as her eyes flickered to red for a moment before going back to lilac. " **What!?** " Weiss and Ruby were both horrified as well, not having heard that before, but Yang wasn't worried for herself. Yang figured she could smash any guy who tried anything, and she figured neither Jaune nor Ren were likely to try anything.

No, her concern was for her sister, her **fifteen** year old little sister. When it came to Ruby the knowledge of her new friends personalities just didn't matter, her protective big sister switch was thrown to the on position and would not be turned off anytime soon. "Hell no! No guy is going to share a room with my little sister, no chance! She's underage!"

"A fact your father took pains, and more than an hour, to remind me of Ms. Xiao-Long." Ozpin replied dryly, gesturing to his scroll. "My ears may never be the same." Beni chuckled, looking over at Glynda who allowed her lips to twitch upwards just a bit at that announcement.

"That essentially means that Jaune will need to be teamed with Ren, and therefore, Nora, which will perforce make Ruby paired with you and your partner Ms. Belladonna. This makes some sense in another way, since it was Jaune who came up with the initial plan to take on the Deathstalker, even if they didn't stick with it, and also made the call to change targets to it's legs. "

Ozpin looked directly at Jaune, startling the boy. "You have a lot of potential young man, and not just as a 'tank'. I hope to see you grow into the leader I can see you being in time, but never be afraid to ask for assistance when you need it." Jaune nodded seriously then looked over at Nora and Ren, who smiled or grinned in welcome at him.

"Hmm… then in that case I volunteer to go with them headmaster." Pyrrha said, ignoring the look of chagrin on Weiss' face. "I might not be the sniper Ruby is, but none of these three have that skillset. And sharing rooms with boys doesn't bother me, so long as we set rules for the bathroom."

"Deal." Ren and Jaune said as one. Jaune went on. "I've shared rooms with my sisters on family trips, so sharing a room isn't that hard." Ren nodded agreement, but didn't elaborate, simply looking over at Nora who grinned and put an arm over his shoulders.

"So that leaves Weiss cream girl to join us." Yang mused, ignoring her sisters groan at her pun or Weiss' glare with ease.

"Indeed. So, you will be teams JNPR and RWBY, led by Jaune Arc and Ruby Rose." Ozpin intoned, to which all eight teens nodded, with only Weiss looking irritated. "Excellent."

Watching this from the window, Ranma frowned. There was something else going on here with Ozpin, Ranma couldn't put his finger on it, but he was reminded of Ozpin's interest in Ruby in the interrogation room they first met in. Ranma didn't doubt that Ruby's dad had indeed called to complain, but even so, that wasn't reason enough to exclude her teaming up with one of the boys. And once that decision was made, Pyrrha's became a done deal given Ranma's own suggestions before the initiation. It just felt too pat, he supposed, even if the teams made a lot of sense.

Deciding to throw a bit of a wrench in the works he spoke up for the first time. "But don't let that whole leadership position thing go to your heads or get set in stone. Like Ozzy said, you're only labeled that for administrative reasons right now. If ya grow into it fine, but if someone else steps up, that's fine too. Heck, you could even have two leadership positions, tactical and strategic."

The teens all nodded at that, Weiss perking up noticeably while Ozpin sipped at his coffee. After a moment he nodded, setting it down. "Indeed, Mr. Saotome is correct in that. But as I said, I see great potential in the both of you, don't let it go to waste. Now, I believe we have a ceremony to get to."

About half an hour later Ranma was watching the ceremony from the back of the auditorium Ranma frowning once more as he pulled at his pigtail, his eyes moving first from Ruby to Weiss to Pyrrha and then to the headmaster. The old man's interest in Ruby worried him, and he had seen a hint of a smile when Pyrrha had volunteered to join Jaune, the hammer girl and the ninja.

He wondered whether or not he should just confront the old man about it, then shook his head. He didn't know the headmaster well enough to know where that confrontation go, and knew that his own so-called diplomatic skills were so small they couldn't be seen by a microscope. He'd wait, and watch, and then act further he had to.

 **OOOOOOO**

It surprised everyone who knew her that Yang was actually an early riser. She got into the habit thanks to her father Taiyang. The two of them would always wake up to see the sunrise before getting in some training before making breakfast for Ruby and Qrow whenever he was around.

This was because Taiyang was a follower of one of the old-time religions, a sun god by the name of Ri Gong Tai Yang Xing Jun **,** and he got up to pay his respects. Yang didn't believe in anything like that, but she did love to see the sunrise come over the distant horizon, bright with promise.

However, this wasn't the first time she had roomed with other people who didn't share that proclivity. Ruby was fine in the mornings, so long as you gave her enough sugar, but the other two didn't seem the type to get up early so Yang exited the room quickly.

Heading outside, Yang was surprised to see that she wasn't the first one up: there were several older students already awake and moving around, and Ranma too. He was actually going through several martial arts moves, stopping occasionally to halt another student, an older boy who Yang haven't seen before who were doing the same. He was built like a martial artist with a trim body made for speed than power, and had darkly tanned skin with several scars crisscrossing his arms and dark red hair. His features also looked somewhat like a Faunus, but not quite.

"Hey hot stuff," she said, moving over to slap Ranma on the rear, only to watch in amusement as Ranma dodged her attempt, turning to her with a smirk. Then his eyes widened seeing what Yang was wearing and she smirked in victory. Right now Yang was wearing what she normally wore to exercise, a tight tank top and even tighter exercise pants.

"Er, ahem, hey Bad Girl," Ranma said, looking away with a faint blush for a moment before getting control of his face once more. "You here to exercise?" He then turned quickly, grabbing the older boy's hand and adjusting his stance just a little bit. "You'll be able to get more power into your punches and head into the next combo swifter if you keep your other knee slightly bent like that. Little things like that kind of add up."

The boy nodded stoically, turning away and redoing the kata from the beginning, and Ranma nodded. "You feel that?"

Yang was about to butt in with a joke there, but the older boy simply nodded his head, a small smile on his face and Ranma turned back to Yang smiling faintly. "Do you want some help too, or do you just want to go into your own routine?"

The buxom blonde frowned thoughtfully, staring between Ranma and the older boy. Normally she'd take him up on that offer, providing the learning was 'hands on'. But she remembered all too easily that outside of combat Ranma didn't actually respond very well to physical flirtation.

It was a bit irritating to her, she liked to flirt and be flirted with. Still, there'd be time enough to try that kind of thing later. "Nah, I'm going to go for a jog first, that's what I do in the mornings. If you're still here," she said unable to completely not flirt stepping up into Ranma's personal space. "I'd be happy to have you walk me through some moves, up close and personal…"

Ranma looked away again his blush returning with reinforcements, and she grinned poking him in the chest once before turning away deliberately swaying her hips as she began to run off. Behind her Ranma coughed, turning away from the rather alluring view to watch Fox do the same, one eyebrow raised at the other man. Ranma shrugged his shoulders and Fox chuckled quietly, before turning back to his exercises.

About 40 minutes later Yang returned and did join in their practice along with a second boy. The second boy was a Yatsuhashi, who looked rather like a monk complete with a monk's robe on at the moment. As Yang arrived he was talking earnestly to Ranma, while Ranma, holding a stick he'd picked up was moving through a kata, slashing the stick through the air like it was a sword.

Yang gaped as from the side of the stick some kind of air attack launched out, cracking into a large boulder set to one side of the small clearing as a marker for a walkway. The large boys eyes widened, and he bowed formally to Ranma, to which Ranma replied equally formally before Yang joined them. "What was that about, and what the hell did you just do?"

Ranma smirked. "Oh, just a martial artist taking his craft seriously. This is Yatsuhashi, and Fox. They're teammates of Coco's. I met Fox the other morning. As for that attack, it's just an air pressure wave. It's easier to do with weapons, though if you're fast enough you can do them with just your hands too." Ranma could do that, but it hurt his hands something fierce, so wasn't something he was willing to do normally.

"Cool," Yang nodded greeting at the two boys, making a mental note to mention that such an attack was a possibility to Ruby, speed was more her thing than Yang's. Then she grinned at Ranma. "So, you have any tips you can teach me?"

Ranma nodded seriously, gesturing at her glorious legs. "You need to use those in combat more, and you're a little too predictable when you get going. What you do you do very well, but you need to be more adaptable, and there are a few things I'd like to talk to you about your Semblance, but that we can do later."

Yang blinked, not having thought Ranma would take it so seriously. However she frowned thinking about their fight in Hei Days before nodding her head. "Makes sense, I've been wondering if I should get leg versions of Ember Celica for a while. But my father's a boxer with a bit of judo and Taekwondo mixed in, so I didn't really have anyone to teach me kickboxing."

"My sister will be able to help you with the kickboxing, apparently she's added that to her repertoire here, and has already helped one student." Ranma exchanged a smirk with the two older boys. "Something you might actually see eventually sooner rather than later."

"There's a story there," Yang murmured, even as she moved over, raising her hands into a boxer's stance, her hands clenching and unclenching excitedly. "But I'll wait until the punchline shows up. But I was serious earlier Ranma, not just flirting. I'll learn a lot better from a spar than just you correcting my stances and everything else."

"So long as you do not use weaponry and can keep control of your Semblance if you have one you can spar anywhere on campus." Yatsuhashi said softly, his voice a calm rumble, a lot quieter than Yang had expected from that barrel of a chest. "But any damages you do to Beacon property will be taken out of the jobs you can take second year and on if you can't pay for it immediately."

He exchanged a look with Fox who smirked, shrugging his shoulders. "Thanks to our leader being rather… profligate with her ammo, we were not in fact paid at all for our first four jobs."

"Awesome!" Yang laughed then shot forward, attacking Ranma as quickly as she could. Ranma matched her blow for blow, smacking her fists aside and then at times throwing a kick before explaining how she could incorporate more of them into her style. About ten minutes in he began to move around more, flipping jumping and dancing around, explaining how she needed to add more mobility into her style, as well as feints and other tricks.

They went at it for about twenty minutes but then they had to stop because Yang's watch went off. Stepping back quickly, Yang gesture to her watch. "I have to go. I set this to go off to let me have enough time to shower before the other girls get up for the day. And I think Ruby mentioned wanting to do something to the room before we have class. Still, good spar."

Ranma nodded, then bowed his head towards the older students and followed her back to the dorm room to get changed himself. Yang paused, then shrugged her shoulders and followed him instead of heading up to her own dorm room. Ranma noticed, and turned to look at her quizzically and the blonde smirked. "Well, our room has four girls sharing one bathroom. I figure if I use your bathroom this morning, I can take some of the pressure off of the others."

That made sense and Ranma nodded, turning away not realizing that this was just another way Yang could start flirting with him. Shaking her head, Yang sighed to herself. _He's sexy but_ _ **so**_ _naïve. But hey, this means I get to be the one to teach him!_ That thought made her smile, and she continued on her way with a new bounce in her step.

She didn't notice that Ruby standing at the top of the stairs leading up to their room. Ruby had come out to look for her wanting Yang to take part in their first team activity, but now she paused gaping and blushing as she saw Yang and Ranma heading towards the same room.

Entering Ranma's room behind him Yang stopped, taking it in for a moment. It was the same size as their team's room, though there wasn't any of the regular furniture it had come stocked with. Instead there was one small bookcase, several large beanbags, a dresser, and that was it. There wasn't anything on the walls, except for the outer wall which strangely had some marks on it which Yang recognized as being the same kind of thing construction workers used. And instead of a bad, there was a hammock hanging from the ceiling.

"Bathrooms through there," Ranma murmured, gesturing towards a doorway along one wall. "You've got about an hour and half before class, but don't use all the hot water okay?" With that Ranma moved into the small kitchenette.

Yang nodded then stood there for a split second fighting her urges to flirt. _If I wasn't certain I'd scare him off I might pretend to strip out here, but no, momma needs to be patient with this one._ Instead she entered the bathroom and even locked the door before stripping and hopping into the surprisingly large shower, which had several different nozzles rather than the one the team's shower had. _If this is with the teachers get, I might be coming back here more often for reasons other than Ranma._

As Yang began to shower, Ranma started to make some breakfast, wondering if he should make Yang some but deciding that she probably would want to eat with her team. He was interrupted a few minutes later by a rapid staccato knock on his door. Outside he found Ruby and all the others standing there, all of them dressed in the school uniform. Cocking his head he looked at them all, he noted some of them didn't look as if they had dressed for the day yet. "Hey gals and guys, what's up?"

While team JNPR looked just as confused as Ranma, Ruby was blushing hotly, poking her fingers together and Blake looked oddly intrigued. Her presence nearly caused Ranma to back away quickly, but he was able to control his instincts for now. But Weiss stepped forward imperiously. "Mister Saotome!"

"Gah, just Ranma please when we're not in class," Ranma interrupted said shaking his head. "I'm not one for formality, and calling me that makes me wonder if my old mans' around. Ugh."

Weiss frowned, but went on "Mister Saotome, Ruby here says she saw her sister entering this room with you! Miss Xiao Long is our teammate currently, and anything she does will reflect on our team. So I would just like to make certain that there isn't anything going on before rumors start up to that effect."

Yang took that moment to stick her head out of the bathroom area. "Ranma, where the heck is your shampoo? You've got some shower gel, but no shampoo in here!?"

"Er, it should be under the… gah!" Ranma turned looking at her then away quickly, shaking his head and blushing.

In the doorway Weiss gaped, then pointed at Ranma and Yang in turn. "Im-immoral! Immoral, a student and a teacher!"

"There's nothing going on Ice Queen." Yang muttered, shaking her head. _Curses foiled again._ "I just figured that if I used his shower, you three would have been able to spend more time in ours. Besides, I was out exercising, and got all sweaty."

Behind the trio of RWB Pyrrha shook her head with a sigh, pushing her own blush down through strength of will. "You see Weiss, it's all a misunderstanding."

Weiss nodded reluctantly, understanding both that Yang had an excuse for using Ranma's bathroom, and that the girl was in fact trying to flirt with him. Still, she would talk with her later about that. Weiss definitely did not want their team to get that kind of reputation.

But Pyrrha had already moved on, looking over his shoulder at the hammock. "Is that allowed?" she asked, pointing over his shoulder at the hammock. "It would certainly save us a lot of room." Despite her analytical tones however, there was a strange look of longing in her face.

Beside her Nora and Ren nodded while Jaune elaborated. "Our room's really crowded with four beds and the rest of the furniture." Ruby and her team all looked and nodded as well, though Weiss and Blake looked extremely skeptical.

Ranma shrugged. "I never read the student manual or anything, so I don't know, your best bet would be ta ask Beni or Professor Goodwitch . But I don't think you all have time for it now, doesn't your next class start in like 45 minutes? If one of ya want's ta wait to use my shower, you can, that should free up your own showers a bit more."

The students all scrambled for the scrolls to checking the time and their schedule, then gasped and rushed off, even Weiss forgetting that they had left Yang behind. But despite her desire to keep flirting with Ranma, or at least get a rise out of him in some way Yang didn't want to be late for her first class either and she turned to the shower again.

Deciding to take Ranma up on his offer Jaune waited, talking with Ranma a bit about his family and what Ranma had been up to while Yang finished her shower. About 20 minutes later she exited, rushing out of the room with a hasty "By Ranma," as she raced up to team RWBY's room to change into her student uniform.

As Jaune hurried into the shower Ranma shrugged, sat down to his breakfast at last, and then headed out, eager to observe the first class of the day. By the time the students began to trickle into the room, Ranma was already in place, hidden high up in one of the rafters of the rather tall room.

Professor Port was a portly man, shorter than Ranma by a good six inches, but even broader in the shoulders, and built thickly everywhere. Yet he moved lightly on his feet, and though his body seemed fat, the way he carried himself told Ranma most of it was muscle, just like Genma in a way. And despite looking like he was at his ease Port spotted Ranma quickly, nodding up at him before moving towards his own desk.

 _Seriously getting some mixed signals from this guy,_ Ranma thought, remembering that Beni hadn't wanted to tell him anything about the other teachers, not wanting to bias him. _That, and that box over in the corne_ r. When Ranma had first arrived that there had been some snorting and growling coming from it, but it had quieted quickly. _Some kind of Grimm?_ It made sense since this was Grimm Studies after all, and the diagrams scattered on the walls were highly detailed and very accurate too.

He watched as the class trickled then and was amused that only one of them seemed to notice he was there at all, the young man from the team Juniper that Ranma hadn't met before. _Ren was it?_ He looked up briefly, caught Ranma's eyes, and then away, before moving over to sit next to the girl with the hammer. _Interesting pair that, heh, still think Nora's entrance into that fight was damn awesome. Sparring with her could be fun._

Ranma remained there throughout the class, frowning as it devolved into some kind of story time with all the stories being about the professor. Surprisingly he had to stop himself from growling angrily at the way that Professor Port winked at Yang, though he was amused at Yang's response of rolling her eyes and looking a little disturbed. He nearly laughed aloud when Weiss smacked Ruby's hand, urging her to pay attention with admittedly no help from her teammates or most of JNPR, with Ren looking as if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open and Pyrrha barely holding on.

Then he watched Weiss deal with a Boarbatusk, having some trouble at first. But surprisingly she listened to Ruby's shouted advice, and dealt with it quickly, dodging its second charge and stabbing it in its side as it passed. She also nodded at Ruby, who grinned back as Weiss took her seat next to Ruby, who, Ranma was amused to note, was wearing her hood and cloak over the school uniform.

From his place by his desk, Port bellowed in laughter waving his massive Blunder-axe around. "Oh well done Ms. Schnee! It looks like we are in indeed in the presence of a true Huntress. But I have to wonder how you would deal with a Boarbatusk young man?" he asked, suddenly staring directly up at Ranma.

Ranma shrugged, jumping down ignoring the gasps and shouts from the students who hadn't noticed him there. He was oddly amused that the furry-demon girl, who was for some reason was hiding her nature, seemed the most startled her eyes comically wide as she bit her lip to keep from hissing at him in shock. _Feh, serves ya right, I just know being around her is going to cause me issues later on._

Blake truly was shocked. She normally knew whenever someone was around, given her life as a White Fang operative that sort of situational awareness was a survival skill. Even in a crowded classroom like this she had spotted every other student, analyzing their threat levels quickly, being rather amused that her own acquaintances were easily the most dangerous. But she hadn't spotted Ranma, and that worried her. _Am I losing my edge?_

"I'd probably grab the thing by its tusks as it was charging, flip it upside down and then stab it in its stomach. Or rip off one of its tusks and use that instead it." Ranma said with a shrug. "Boarbatusks can be tough, but they're predictable. They always attack on a straight line, and once ya dodge their charge they're easy enough to deal with. In the wilds you can also trick them into traps, and they also act sometimes like regular boars would being interested in mud baths, and scratching themselves against trees to mark their territory."

One of the students, a rather thin boy with a mohawk, raised a cautious hand. "Wait, so that part of the story was true!" He asked, alluding to part of the story Port had been telling them a few moments before asking for volunteers.

"Most Grimm can be led into traps and many of them can be hunted just like any other animal." Ranma said with a nod, though he didn't let his eyes stray from Port. "As for how Professor Port here wrestled with the animal in hand-to-hand, you mind if I test a theory professor?"

"Go ahead my boy!" Professor Port laughed, holding his arms out to either side invitingly.

Ranma nodded and stepped forward then one of his hands flashed as the sound of a machine gun rebounded around the room. A second later he held that hand out to the side wincing and shaking it as Professor Port shook his head slightly, rubbing at his chest thoughtfully.

"Ow!" Ranma scowled, wincing, "think I broke a few of my fingers there. Your Semblance is a defensive one I take it."

As most of the students stared in confusion wondering what had happened Port began to laugh. "Usually only the third or fourth year students try that, but I suppose it will at least show the students they should take my words seriously. Yes, my Semblance is the **Juggernaut**! It makes me as strong and durable as the Juggernaut of legend. But one should not always rely on one's Semblance." he said, then looked up and sighed as the bell rang. "But I suppose that is a tale for another day."

He nodded at the students, and as they quickly began to exit the room said, "I would like a paper on how you would defend or attack against a colony of seventeen Boarbatusks. Both group tactics based upon your teams, and how you personally would face them. Have it on my desk by next week."

He nodded at Ranma, who nodded back and exited the room after the students thinking about how looks could be deceiving. _Still not exactly a good teacher though._

As soon as the newest addition to Beacons staff had left with the students, Port leaned against his desk, wincing as he rubbed at his chest. "Good grief that is a most interesting young man. He nearly broke through my Semblance. How many times did he punch me in that second? I lost count at eight-hundred impacts. Yes, a very interesting young man, I wonder how his classes will go?"

 **OOOOOOO**

Later that day, Ranma sat with the teachers in the cafeteria, or at least with Benzaiten and Glynda. The other teachers apparently preferred to take their meals in the rooms or together in the teacher's lounge, the better to use mealtimes to catch up on work. But Glynda had gotten into the habit of sitting in the cafeteria randomly once a week plus the first day of every semester. Benzaiten routinely ate here every other day, usually with some of the students, or alone with Glynda partaking in their favorite pastime of tea.

Ranma sighed as he sat down across from the two women, shaking his head. "Well, I can see why you think Professor Port's class needs an overhaul. I've no doubt he's a good Hunter that Semblance of his would be tricky to figure out way around, but he changes his class like he's… he's…"

"Dictating his memoirs to the world's most understanding secretary?" Benzaiten supplied. "Yes, it is an excellent Hunter, but I'm not certain that makes him a good teacher."

"There are some bits and pieces of those tales that are interesting enough, but for the most part they're useless. The homework he assigns is pretty good though."

He looked over to Glynda who sighed taking a sip of the most excellent tea that Benzaiten had prepared for them before setting it down and nodding her head towards the younger woman, who smiled back. Then she turned to Ranma and nodded. "If you think you can add bits and pieces of knowledge about actually hunting or fighting Grimm to your class please do so. My own classes will cover some of that, but Professor Port is not as good a teacher as I would like to have in what is essentially the second most important class here."

"Why is he here at all?" Ranma asked bluntly.

"He's an old friend of Professor Ozpin, and he thought that professor Port's experience would carry over into the classroom when Professor Whiskey retired." Beni supplied having heard the story before and noticing Glynda was loath to answer. "But he still has two more years on his contract."

Glynda nodded chiming in reluctantly. "I've talked Professor Ozpin out of offering him an extension thankfully but we're still stuck with him for two years."

"Are you saying that the other years he's taught actually seem to have taken something from his classes?"

"Somewhat." Glynda sighed again, looking away for a moment. "They tend to know enough to get by about the various Grimm types and where they can be found, and a bit about how to combat them in teams or singly, but not as much as they should and not enough about their various natural weaknesses. But my own class tends to make up for some of that."

"I can handle adding more of that." Ranma suggested not saying what it was since Glynda seemed very uncomfortable with talking about a fellow professor's deficiencies. He changed the subject for now. "Are there any other classes today I should sit in on?"

"The first day is mostly orientation outside of Port's class which is held every Monday. I have a small seminar later on about the rules and regulations of Beacon, and I walk the students through all of the requisition forms and other things of that nature, in particular how to book times in the training areas. Beyond that there are two more classes today, one of which you might wish to sit in on: weapons crafting. The other is about the laws of Vale. I gather you **should** probably sit it on that, but that you wouldn't really care to." Glynda joked tartly causing Benzaiten to chuckle while Ranma simply shook his head with a faint laugh.

Despite her first impression, Glynda did actually have a sense of humor. It was very dry and rather sarcastic, but it was there. "No thanks. I'll sit in on the first I suppose; I still need to figure out my own personal weapon. My hatchet isn't going to cut it long-term. But it should be good enough for now." With that last sentence Ranma looked over and Benzaiten, who sighed and nodded her head.

Glynda didn't notice this byplay, having closed her eyes as she sipped her tea once again. She was a bit of a connoisseur of tea, and having Benzaiten as her apprentice and friend had been a massive boon in this area.

She set her cup down and once again turned her eyes on Ranma. "Tomorrow is my first Combat Training class. We start promptly at 10:30 in the morning and go until 4:30 in the afternoon. Tuesday and Wednesday will be spent like that, while on Friday we have a shorter class from two o'clock to 4:30. Your class is scheduled to be on Thursday since most of the other classes offered Thrusday aren't physically intensive. Will you have something for me to look at by tomorrow evening?"

"If you mean a write up about what I generally want to cover, I have most of that done now. You want it now, or should I wait until I incorporate what I learn today into it?" Ranma asked obliquely, still following the fact that Glynda didn't like to speak ill about her fellow professors.

"That works very well Ranma." Glynda said actually allowing a faint smile to appear on her face.

Ranma blinked at it, shaking her his head slightly. When she smiled like that it completely transformed Glynda's face, making her seem both younger and much more approachable. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Benzaiten had faintly blushed at it. _Hmm, can my little sister have a bit of a crush? Can't fault her taste I guess. She's not my type, but even I can tell Glynda's a looker._

Looking past Glynda he noticed that team Juniper had entered the room, and exchanged a nod with Pyrrha, who smiled back brightly at him. "Can professors also rent one of the training areas?"

"Of course," Glynda said with a nod. "In fact, you can use the room use for my freshman classes so long as I'm not using it. Only professors can do that, but it is actually the best training area we have, certainly the most high-tech one at the moment. The other training areas don't have the aura reading capacitors just yet, though I believe that Professor Ozpin said that we would be getting funding to renovate them shortly. Why do you ask?"

"I promised Pyrrha that she and I could have a match soon." Ranma said, nodding his head over to the redhead.

Glynda glanced over at the Mistral champion then nodded thoughtfully. "That actually might be a good idea. I've seen several of her matches, and I don't know if she will actually learn anything from my courses this year. Oh, I'll be able to help with her physical endurance, and possibly her Aura endurance if she wishes for me to help her in that area. But most of my freshman level course is based around repairing or otherwise addressing deficiencies in the students' personal styles while teaching them also how to work together as unified teams."

Ranma made a small get on with it gesture, and Glynda shrugged. "As I said, my class consists of three different days, one day is for physical training, think of it as a gym class basically. The second day is for team and partner based training, and the third day is for personalized sparring, where I set the students against one another."

"In that case, can I use your room after that class on Friday?"

"I suppose that will work." Glynda said with a nod. "Honestly, pitting the 'Invincible Girl' as she is known in the media against any normal freshman would have a detrimental effect on the morale of the rest of the students. We always have to think about that kind of thing," she sighed faintly.

"Heh, they're going to have to find a new label for her after our match," Ranma smirked eagerly. "I'll just tell her the good news now I suppose. Are we still on for later?" he asked looking over at Benzaiten.

Benzaiten sighed and nodded. "I suppose so. If I can't talk you out of this, I might as well go along with you just in case."

As Ranma stood up heading towards where Team Ruby and team Juniper were sitting Glynda turned to Benzaiten who waved her hand dismissively. "I don't think you want to know."

Ranma tapped Pyrrha on the shoulder, and the redhead turned to him smiling happily. "Ranma! That was an interesting class with Professor Port, and got more so when you showed up. How long were you there by the way?"

"The entire time," Ranma replied with a smile, noting out of the corner of his eye that Blake was staring at him, and using a lot of his self-control to not flinch at the feel of those golden eyes on him. She was really like a furry terror, and it wasn't a nice feeling. "Anyway, you still want to spar with me?"

"Of course," Pyrrha exclaimed, quickly getting to her feet. "Now?" Yang and Nora laughed at her excitement, while Weiss looked a little disturbed and the others all simply smiled.

"'fraid not, we have to use the facilities here. But I just got the okay for you and I ta spar after Goodwitch's class on Friday. You won't be called up during it, don't worry about that."

"I don't like having to wait, but I understand," Pyrrha said with a nod. "I will admit to being a little ambivalent about our courses after I looked at our schedules. I know Coco and Ragnar explained but still…" she shrugged.

"I know, but it is what it is." Ranma said with a scowl.

"Take a seat Professor." Weiss said politely, "and please tell us what your class is going to cover. I noted that you didn't seem to have any book listed for it."

"Now that would be telling. As for books, nope, no books, but if ya don't have a good memory I'd advise ya to download that app to your scroll that records sounds automatically. I'm going to make my classes as hands on as I can make them." Ranma said as he sat down, with Yang to one side and Pyrrha across from her.

Despite being on different teams the two girls were still friends, and had some similar interests. Before Ranma had arrived they had been talking about the differences between fighting against a group or humans and a group of Grimm before going into hair products with Weiss and Blake. Jaune, Ruby and Nora were engrossed in a discussion about types of sweets while Ren calmly sipped his tea, only looking up when Ranma joined them.

"How are you all feeling? Any team troubles?" Ranma asked, changing the subject.

"Not really," Ruby said, looking at Weiss, who huffed, but nodded her head. "We've decided that Weiss will be in charge of both of our teams' study habits, but Ren is going to sit on her if she gets too tyrannical about it."

Weiss huffed again. "I am **not** a tyrant! I am simply an over-achiever, and given what Coco told us yesterday, I think we all should be shouldn't we? That is, if we want to earn some of the privileges she mentioned. I for one like the idea of being able to heading to Vale every weekend."

"I like the idea of having access to the school's smithy!" Ruby said enthusiastically. "So yeah, Weiss is in charge of the classes. We're going to assign two students to take notes in each class too. So far it's me and Yang for Weapons Construction, Nora and Weiss in Dust usage and ammunition. Blake's also volunteered to be one of the two in charge of the history class."

Blake nodded, speaking in her normal soft, almost smoky tones. "History is one of my favorite subjects and Doctor Oobleck is known to be one of the better archeologists in the world. It should be fascinating."

"I agree, though I wouldn't say all of history is a passion of mine." Pyrrha said with a self-deprecating smile. "But I've always enjoyed learning about the history of warfare."

"As for the teams, we've also decided that I'll be tactical leader for team Juniper for now like the headmaster said. But we'll all try and take turns at that position. Ruby is tactical leader for team Ruby, which means she and I will need to work on team tactics and paired attacks." Jaune said.

Ranma nodded thoughtfully glad that Juniper had all decided to be sensible about that. Ruby had shown a decent level of tactical acumen and an ability to work with Ren, Nora and Weiss in their battle against the large group of Ursa the other day. But none of team Juniper had shown an ability to think ahead or work with more than just their partners. "Makes sense, and good thinking all around."

Ruby giggled grinning over at Nora who held up a thumbs up. "Honestly, we sort of decided that despite being broken up like this, we're just going to act like we're all one team. I mean, we're all friends, so it's not that big a stretch."

"Enough about that!" Nora said, smacking her hands down the table. "Let's play getting to know you! My team and I've already played this, but whatever. I'll start. I'm Nora Valkyrie I like hammers, Ren though we're not together-together, pancakes, smashing things, and anything pink and sparkly! In my spare time I figure out ways of using my hammer, hang out with Ren, and read comic books. My secret vice is I like to play pranks on bullies, or break their legs, either or."

While most of her listeners tried to decide if she was serious about that last bit Nora stared at Ren expectantly who sighed faintly but smiled at her, nodding his head. "I am Lie Ren, my likes include Nora, though were not together-together, cooking, reading, meditating, and sleeping. In my spare time I like to sleep, meditate, or generally take it easy as often as I can, but with Nora as a friend that isn't often enough." He teased.

Nora pouted. "You'd be as mobile as a sloth if I let you! Sloths are awesome and cute, but a slothful Ren isn't!"

"All I'm saying is I would like the opportunity to be a slothful Ren. Who knows, you might like it." the black-haired youth said, still smirking at her. This was obviously an old joke between the two of them.

"Blech." Nora said with a laugh then looked at Pyrrha.

"Oh, um, I'm Pyrrha Nikos. I like making friends, training, reading comics when I can get away with it, and um…my secret I suppose is I'm just this side of being a chocolate addict. My manager however almost never let me have any." Pyrrha said, tapping her fingers together, embarrassed. "I like to exercise of course, but I also like to dance in my free time."

"Hmm, Traditional, ballet, formal, or loose?" Weiss asked interestedly.

"I like to dance too! We should totally go clubbing together!" Yang interrupted, ignoring Ruby's blush as she remembered the time the two of them had taken dance class together. "I know this awesome dance club downtown…"

"Which **you** aren't allowed to enter any longer." Ranma said firmly. "You might not've taken that fight seriously, but Junior and the twins did." All of the others at the table looked between Ranma and a rather sheepish looking Yang, and Ranma shook his head, gesturing to Pyrrha to answer Weiss' question.

Pyrrha blushed, looking very embarrassed at being called out on this. "Um, none of the types that Weiss mentioned, I, I like folk dancing. Traditional Mistral folk dancing involves dancing to Mistrali songs to evoke the feelings of the song or dancing with groups in a formalized setting as part of a festival."

Cocking his head, Ranma thought for a moment then began to sing a song he remembered from his time in Greece. The topic and the words had stuck in his mind almost as much as a few American songs with the same sort of theme. The song was about slavery, about slavery equaling death, and the need to fight against it and take your chance at freedom. His voice was somewhat uneven and definitely untrained, but the words still came through. "/Stravos du levos sol demar…/"

As Ranma began to sing Pyrrha's eyes went wide at first, then she began to smile, then sing along softly, staring at Ranma, who's own eyes were locked on the ceiling as he struggled to remember all the words. He only could remember the first few stanzas, but that was enough for Pyrrha.

"Yes, exactly like that, though, I haven't heard the original Grecian in… in many years." She seemed to become sad for a moment before throwing it, off, smiling again at Ranma. "That was amazing Ranma!"

"Thanks." Ranma said, flushing slightly and looking away. "Er, the friend who taught it to me translated the words for me, and I always liked the message about needing to fight against slavery. I've got others, but most of 'em are in Asian."

One weird thing about this world was that Japanese and Chinese were seemingly merged into a single language here. Ranma had no idea if that was the way they had been originally, or if they had simply merged overtime, but he still found it really bizarre.

"that's cool," Yang said, frowning internally as she looked between Ranma and Pyrrha. Even if Pyrrha didn't realize it, she definitely had some competition here, the two of them had way too much in common for it to be any other way. _Damn._ "I know a few Asian songs like that too, combat songs y'know? I could share my mix of them at some point."

Ranma nodded. "Sure, if you can have it ready by Wednesday that'd be great. I'm going to be too busy to enjoy it until then."

Something about the way Ranma said that made Yang cock an eyebrow at him inquisitively, but he shook his head, unwilling to be drawn on what he meant. Then Ruby cut in asking about his class again, and Yang let herself be sidetracked.

 **OOOOOOO**

"This is such a bad idea," Benzaiten groaned, sitting down next to Rama in the cockpit of the bullhead. "I can't believe you talked me into this."

"Oh come on, you were probably bored as I was today. Besides, I have good logical reasons for wanting to take out these Goliaths, and you know it."

"I understood and agreed with all of your reasons, but willingly fighting an S-class Grimm is still a recipe for disaster." Benzaiten muttered.

Before the students had arrived Ranma had raided Beacon's knowledge base of Grimm. He had been looking for knowledge on how Grimm propagated only to find nothing about it. But he had found that the school knew about a herd of Goliaths that routinely moved around the distant mountains of the city of Vale, well past where the failed expansion project named Mountain Glen resided.

Ranma had never seen a Goliath since they were not native to Vacuo and very rarely seen out in the wilds beyond the countries. They were known as one of the more passive S class Grimm out there, and Ranma wondered how well they would stack up against the other S-class in actual combat. So he'd talked Benzaiten into coming with him on a bit of an expedition to find out.

It'd taken some doing of course, but the fact of the matter was that if you killed the S-class Grimm in an area (if there were any) the other Grimm in that territory would battle for dominance and be too busy to bother humans. That, plus Ranma's insistence that any S-class Grimm should be engaged and killed as soon as possible had convinced Benzaiten to come with him.

What Beni hadn't told him was that she had been one of the Hunters who first spotted the Goliath herd several months back. She had thought at that point that the Beacon professors should deal with the issue, but with several professors not on campus over the summer, including Port Peach and the Forge Master, Ozpin had decided not to send the rest out until they were all available. And then the mission had been vetoed by the Vale Council, who worried about stirring up the Grimm so close to the city itself regardless of the city's natural defenses.

But all of those logical reasons to do this had paled in comparison to Ranma insinuating that Benzaiten had gotten out of shape, that being at Beacon had made her soft. Just because she hadn't been trying to kill him outright during their first little spar had given him a bit of an ego, and Beni had leapt at the chance to prove that she was, if not a better martial artist, than a better Huntress for being here and learning from Glynda then she had been previously.

The bullhead set down in a small clearing in the massive forest that surrounded Mountain Glen, well away from where Benzaiten and the others had spotted the Goliaths in question and that haunted disaster zone. Getting out of her chair Benzaiten moved into the cargo area, grabbing up several small wireless and battery powered speakers, stuffing them into her ki space. "So, where are we going to set up?"

Ranma looked out into the forest, frowning faintly. "I noticed a larger clearing a few miles to the west, we can make for that for now, leave the bullhead here. We don't want to set up our little trap anywhere near the bullhead, just in case it gets damaged."

Benzaiten nodded and wordlessly followed as Ranma moved forward, the two of them leaping up out of the bullhead and into the tree line quickly making their way through the forest. They saw the occasional scattered Grimm here and there, but there weren't nearly as many as there would have been out in the Grimm Lands, but there were more here than there was in the Emerald Forest.

They stopped in a tree making no noise as they watched a small group of Beowolves move through the foliage below. "Will the small fry bother the plan do you think?" Beni whispered in Ranma's ear.

Ranma shook his head, indicating quiet as the one of the Beowolves leaned upright for a moment on it's hind legs, sniffing the air. Both martial artists were silent until the thing seemed to lose interest moving off quickly. "Beowolves had really good hearing, not up to a real wolf's level, but still far better than humans. Need to be aware of that Beni, though their sense of smell sucks in comparison to any dogs."

Beni nodded but repeated her question and he shrugged. "Don't think so, mono wire will work way better on them than it will on the Goliaths, if their skin is anything like a normal S-class's."

From there the two of them continued their trek stopping occasionally when they noticed Nevermores around. They were much more of a threat than the Vultures of Vacuo were. But Ranma and Beni were so silent and so quick as they flowed through the forest that they were able to take out these scattered avians before they could make any noise to gather their brethren.

They stopped as they came to what looked like an elephant run smashed through the forest. Ranma whistled a little looking at the damage, nodding his head. "So that aspect of the Goliaths is true at least, they really do act like elephants, simply moving wherever they wished, smashing anything in their path."

Beni nodded, then leaped up higher into the trees taking a look out position there while Ranma made certain to look around them, not wanting any Grimm surprises today. They were going to be the ones springng the surprise this time. The two of them remained there for around forty minutes, before Beni was back down with Ranma, gesturing southeast down the elephant run. "They're down there, barely visible. You wanted take a look at them before setting up your trap?"

"Yeah, I did." Ranma nodded, and the two of them raced off, running parallel it to the elephant run, keeping as silent and quiet as they could, two ghosts moving through the forest. Soon enough they reached the herd, quickly hiding among the foliage of one of the trees. Even if someone had been looking for them it would have taken a very good Hunter or an animal with excellent eyesight is spot them.

The Goliaths were massive, five stories tall at least, with two of them, the trail breaker and the one at the far end of the column being closer to eight stories tall. This variety of Grimm seemed based upon an elephant's body, with massive legs, and a head with large 'ears' along with a massive prehensile trunk. Their eyes were deep flaming red, as all Grimm eyes were. They had the typical Grimm mask, a huge thing that flared out into 'ear' shapes to either side of their heads, massive armor covering their kneecaps, chests, back and neck. They lumbered forward, ponderous and slow but with a certain unstoppable feel to them.

Yet for all of that, they didn't seem to have much in the way of offense. Heavy tusks yes, just like a bull elephant's, and those prehensile noses probably packed a wallop. Certainly you wouldn't want to be stepped on or head-butted by them either. But they moved slowly, had short, useless tails, and their legs didn't look very flexible, nor did they have any claws to speak of.

Wanting a closer look at their legs, Ranma tapped Beni on the shoulder, indicating she should remain there but he was going down further to the ground. She frowned but nodded, and Ranma quickly scaled the tree trunk as silent as any squirrel. Hiding in a nearby bush, he examined the legs of a few of the Grimm from the center of the column, frowning heavily. From what he was seeing, it was basically going to be a tossup whether or not mono-wire could cut through that tough hide. That wasn't good, but it could be worse.

He waited until the final Grimm had passed by then slowly slunk out, wanting to look at the back of their knees for a moment, before making his way back to Beni in their previous hideout. He nodded at her, then gestured away into the forest at a diagonal from the route the Grimm were following.

They moved off talking quietly as Ranma outlined his plan.

"Why do I have to be the one doing the digging?" Ranma asked several moments later. Even as he complained Ranma grabbed a shovel, one of two he had stored in the bullhead before they left Beacon Academy.

"Because this was entirely your idea, and because you're the man here." Beni said, holding up her small dainty hands and shuddering theatrically at the mere thought of manual labor. "Besides," she went on more seriously, "I want to set up my speakers. And if any other Grimm come along while you're busy, I'll deal with them as quietly as I can."

"Well, at least those last two points make sense." Ranma laughed. With that, he turned to the ground and began to spade out a clump of dirt from the direct center of the elephant run. "Though I have to wonder," he said aloud as Beni made to turn away "why no one else has thought of using the Grimm's animal characteristics against them before this."

"They probably have with the smaller Grimm indeed I know many Hunters do with Boarbatusks, but S-class Grimm? Those are too dangerous to fool around with which is another aspect of why I agreed to come with you on this one. The records of Hunters who have fought Goliath's are so few and far between I'm uncertain what to expect, that makes this both exciting and necessary."

Ranma nodded again falling silent as he turned back to his work while Beni raced off into the surrounding woodland. She first made certain that there weren't any Grimm within hearing range of Ranma's work, making a wide circle around their chosen ambush spot. Then she came back, setting up her small speakers hidden away in different places around their chosen ambush point, a section of the 'elephant' run that passed to one side of a large rocky outcropping, which would further limit the Goliath's mobility.

This took her an hour, by which point Ranma had dug out a large pit in the center of the elephant run, large enough so that even a Goliath would stumble into it. And just like an elephant, a Goliath would never be able to pull itself out, its trunk wasn't long enough, and their legs not prehensile enough. When Beni returned, Ranma was in the process of setting up several spools of mono-wire, the same kind he used in his wrist shooter. He was spreading it out between the trees randomly along the Goliath run at around head height, which would be calf height or less on a Goliath.

She landed next to him, jerking her head towards the pit. "Stakes?"

Ranma shook his head. "No, wood won't burst through a regular Grimm's hide, not without a lot of force behind it, and since Goliath's are supposedly known for their durability, I don't think even the weight of one will be able to push it through, the wood'd simply shatter. Besides, can't you hear them?"

Beni frowned, cocking her head and then she heard it, the tramp of heavy, slow feet in the distance. "Ahh. Do you want any help?"

In reply Ranma help up his hands, on which he was currently wearing a pair of heavy gloves with a thin metal plate on the palm. "I only have one pair of these. Choose your spot, and maybe start singing or something?"

"Will do." Beni nodded and raced off. She did a very quick perusal of the area once again, killing several Beowolves that had begun to move into the area before rushing around and turning on her speakers. With that done, she took up a position she had scouted earlier, a hide nearly 30 feet away from the pit in the opposite direction from the oncoming Goliath's. Once hidden among the tree limbs Beni began to hum to herself, sighting along Saifa Toboe, waiting.

Ranma took up a position high up one of the trees, hidden from the Goliath's angle of approach but visible to her. He nodded his head in her direction, hefting his hatchet eagerly.

Her eyes narrowed slightly Beni took a moment to study her erstwhile brother. _Back on Earth, Ranma had never been the type to hold a grudge, or, though he would probably never admit it, the type to take proactive action. Here he seems to have blossomed finding a cause worth fighting for. Still, I have to wonder if his hatred of the Grimm is altogether healthy? Perhaps I should not have encouraged him on this venture, but if I had not agreed to come along, I think he would've decided to do this on his own._

With that somewhat worrying thought Beni decided to table such long-term concerns as the first Goliath's came into view down the trail. They truly did act like elephants in some ways. They didn't trumpet and snort to one another as elephants were wont to do, but they definitely had a herd like hierarchy, with the largest in front and the others behind him moving in a single file down the trail, with another almost as large guarding the back-trail.

As they came closer, both martial artists took the time to see if they could spot any further weaknesses, anything that could be used to break through the armor that made the Goliath's so dangerous. Neither spotted anything new, but both were rather philosophical about it. After all, learning about how to fight these things was part of why they were out here.

When the first Goliath's came within a few paces of the trap Ranma turned his head slightly toward Beni and nodded. She nodded in reply and clicked the button that would connect her music system to all the small speakers she had hidden around. They remained still and silent, waiting and then the first Goliath stepped on the makeshift canopy that Ranma had rigged over his pit, a simple tarp with the dirt from his digging spread out on it.

For just a moment the Goliath made a noise that was almost pure elephant. "ROOOOhaaggoo!" But this didn't save the largest Goliath in the herd from falling headfirst into the pit.

Immediately the rest of the herd trumpeted and bellowed aggressively, moving forward and spreading out into the surrounding woods. At the same time Beni began to play music, starting her own assault as she lifted her weapon to her eye again. A moment later she fired a large sniper round, a larger size than even Ruby's Crescent Rose used, at one of the elephants who had begun to move around the pit down the trail toward he. The around hammered into the eye ridge above its right eye, not penetrating and not doing any significant damage or even making the Goliath turn its head.

"Damnit!" she muttered, "even eye-shots are going to be difficult!"

"Rahaoogah!" To both sides of the Goliath run several Goliath's had gotten tangled in the Mono-wire, trumpeting out their anger. Their hides and armor were such however that it wasn't actually hurting them. A mere second later there was the distinct sound of several metal snapping as they burst through, the mono-wire flinging itself out with enough force to cut into nearby trees or even rocks.

Even their hide was too tough for it to cut into very far. It made them bleed a little, black Grimm blood trickling down their legs, but did no real damage. What did do some damage to their numbers at least was that several of them were still tripped up by the wires even as they broke through.

Two of them fell forwards, and couldn't right themselves before Ranma was on them. Leaping forward from his hiding place Ranma brought his hatchet down right behind the first pachyderm-like Grimm's head where there was no bone armor to allow for movement.

"Die!" Ranma brought his hatchet down with all the strength he could in one arm, and watched in astonishment as it **bounced** off the hide of the Goliath's neck. It penetrated a little, and some blood spurted out, but he couldn't even nick the spine.

Ranma only had time for that one strike before another Goliath turned on him, it's long nose whipping out like a giant whip in an attempt to smash him into pieces, its speed beyond what Ranma had thought the Goliaths capable of. "Oh, crap!" Ranma ducked quickly, nearly lying flat on the back of the Goliath he just tried to kill, whipping out his Mono-wire to catch the attacking Goliath's nose in a noose.

He watched for a moment and nodded internally as he saw the Mono-wire cut into the nose's underside farther then he had been able to cut into the downed Goliath's neck with his hatchet. A second later the momentum of the Goliath's swing pulled him up and away, into the air away from another Goliath which had been about to step on him. Then he disengaged the Mono-wire, landing in the treetops.

But the Goliaths had done a better job of spreading out than Ranma had seen, and he was almost immediately under attack again. "Crap times two!" The nearest Goliath smashed into the tree, shattering it easily with a single headbutt, it's nose snapping out to smash into Ranma. But he was able to get a hand down on top of the nose, using the attacks force to flip himself up and over the attack.

Meanwhile, Beni was forced to retreat from her first sniper hide, and was now using her sound-based attacks hoping that it would rattle the Grimm, but she wasn't having much luck. But the music had built up by this point, and she had kept enough of a distance so she was able to concentrate on her Semblance.

As the song Freak Like Me rang out in the woodlands from several scattered speakers Beni concentrated. An instant later, small metal needles popped into existence directly in front of the eyeballs of the nearest two attacking Goliaths. Before the two Grimm could even register the threat, Beni hurled them forward.

They penetrated, blinding the two Goliaths who hooted and bellowed just like elephants would have in agony, slamming into one another and their fellows, stumbling to their knees. But they were still very much alive. She couldn't force the needles deep enough to penetrate to the brain behind those eyes. "Good grief these things really are tough, why in the world hasn't Remnant developed artillery yet?"

Scowling she leaped away from another Goliath's attempt to charge her, then had to leap to its back and away as the tree she'd initially been aiming for was almost immediately demolished by another's charge. She idly dropped a satchel charge of Dust grenades there, racing off, twisting in midair in midair to fire back at them. The charge exploded on the Goliath's back, causing it to cry out in pain and forcing it to its knees, but even that wasn't enough to fully penetrate it's armor. Its bone armor was cracked and scorched, and it was bleeding in places in but the Grimm got to his feet and turned to join the chase after Beni, leaving its two blinded fellows behind.

Luckily for the two martial artists for all of their herd mentality the Goliath's didn't actually work together like a herd would. Many of them got in one another's way, and they didn't think to encircle or trapped the two martial artists with their numbers after spreading out to find them in the first place. So it was the two martial artists who got the first real kill.

Ranma leaped from one back to another dodging every blow in midair with an ease and mastery that was part and parcel of the Aerial Style of Anything Goes. He was soon above the two blinded pachyderms, and he dropped down onto one, using his shield to hammer into their faces driving the needles that his sister had summoned into being deeper into their eye sockets. That Goliath fell boneless to the ground, it's brain pierced. " **YES!** " Ranma pushed off with the same shield bearing arm, flipping in midair to land on the other one and do the same to it.

But there his luck failed, because he stayed put there just a second too long with another Goliath nearby. That Goliath's nose whipped out, crashing into Ranma side and hurling him away just after Ranma finished off his fellow.

The blow hit with a strength Ranma had never felt in a blow before. "GRAHHHH!" He howled in pain as he was flung through the air, knowing that blow had broken at least a rib. He slammed into and through a tree, before cracking his back against a rock slightly further away from their ambush point.

But he wasn't away from the Goliaths. One of them raised a hoof trying to stamp down on him but Ranma quickly raised the shield blocking it, not having time to roll out of the way. The Goliath bore down with his foot, growling now with a sound no pachyderm could've made.

Ranma grimaced in pain, getting his feet under him and pushing upwards with all of his might, throwing off the Goliath's foot. "No pancake for you!"

He was instantly forced to dodge its nose, leaping into midair where he was forced to dodge a headbutt, bringing his shield around to smash aside the tusk that would've otherwise gored him, slamming his hatchet edge-on into the thing's Grimm mask at just the right angle for one of his hatchet's ends to slam into it's eye.

The Grimm hooted angrily, but tried to grab Ranma with its nose despite the pain. Ranma desperately kicked off its nose upwards escaping that fate, then brought the shield down to slam into its nose near its base right between where it joined the Grimm mask.

This drew some blood and caused the thing to back away shaking his head in pain, but by that point Ranma was now circled by the creatures. For the next few minutes it was all he could do to dodge and duck around, constantly trying to keep moving and in the air.

He was soon joined by Beni, who had blinded three more pachyderms, but had nearly been smashed out of the air by a similar blow like what Ranma had felt. "Exactly when did we lose control here?!" Beni shouted. She had to be heard over the sound of the battle and the background noise of her music, which had changed from Freaks Like Me to Cut the Cord.

"Pretty much the moment right after that first one fell into the pit." Ranma quipped, then grimaced as he was once more forced to dodge an attack from a horn when a Goliath twisted its head around to turn him into a shishkabob. "I'm going to suggest something now that will **really** not sound like me!"

"Retreat?" Beni said hopefully. She had no doubt the two of them could leave this group of Grimm in the dust if they wished.

"Heh, you're funny. No." Ranma said, then using an attempt from one of the Goliath's to catch them in his nose to force himself out of its range and the range of two of its fellows. But instead of remaining in the air, Ranma used that momentum to push himself down, rolling along the back of one of the Grimm then pushing himself to the side quickly as another one tried to headbutt him.

That attack missed, slamming its head into its fellows rear quarters when Ranma dodged. Indeed it did so strongly its horns actually penetrated it's fellow's hide, causing a mini fight to erupt between the near-crippled Grimm and it's accidental attacker.

Ignoring this little bit of serendipity Ranma threw himself further to the side and down, rolling under another Goliath's bulk. "Take to the ground!"

Ranma leaped up bringing around his hatchet in a full body circle to slam upwards into the thing's stomach. This thankfully did not turn out to be as dense as the rest of the Goliath's hide. The hatchet buried itself nearly 2 inches into the Grimm's stomach, and Grimm blood spurted out, so much it nearly covered Ranma before he could dodge to one side. "They're vulnerable underneath!"

The Goliath tried to raise one of its back legs to kick at Ranma, but its joints just did not allow it to move quickly enough or bend well enough for it to do so before Ranma could see it coming and jump upwards. He stayed there now, using the Grimm's own desperate kicks to stay near its stomach, hacking and slashing for all he was worth.

"You're right I didn't think you would ever say something like that." Beni muttered between dodging, then she tried the same maneuver with limited success. One of the Goliath's was able to catch her with a sidewise headbutt that sent her flying into the ground rather than the controlled landing she had hoped for, but luckily it's tusk's point missed her. Rolling with it, Beni came to rest behind a boulder for a moment then dodged as a Goliath's snout smashed into it, shattering the boulder with almost contemptuous ease.

In return that Grimm lost its eyes to several more conjured needles. As it cried out, backing away in pain Beni dodged between its front legs, aiming upwards with Saifa Toboe for a moment and letting loose on full auto with several dozen Dust rounds. Like the Goliath Ranma was slowly killing, this one's stomach wasn't as protected as the rest of it, and the blows smashed into it, penetrating an inch or so before exploding. But it took most of her ammo to actually kill it.

"GAhhhruhhh…" That Goliath fell with a last mournful cry, but by that point Beni had ducked out from under it, hurling short conjured spears at all of the Goliaths around her, before she could dodge underneath the next one. She killed only one more Goliath in a similar manner before she ran out of ammo, and was forced to use a satchel charge on the second, the last such satchel charge Beni had brought along. After that she made use of conjured weapons, feeling her Aura draining away with each assault, yet was still able to kill three more.

Ranma had a much slower time of it not having a gun he had to use his hatchet, and it was slow work even with Amiguriken speed slashes. "Must remember to talk to Ruby about a gun for me!" Even so, he was able to kill three more Grimm in that same time.

Moving between one victim and the next a Goliath got lucky clipping him with a kick that again imparted far more force than Ranma had ever felt before, hurling him away into the air. There another Goliath caught him with a headbutt before Ranma could turn his body enough to use his hands to push away from it. It was only his shield that saved him from being gored, and he was again flung backwards, wincing in agony before he hit the ground rolling quickly and kicking off the ground in a different direction before another Goliath could stomp on him.

Dropping his hatchet for now, Ranma again changed his direction quickly ducking between that Goliath's legs before it could turn towards him again, kicking up and into the air right underneath it to drive both of his hands against the things stomach. "Moko Takabasha!"

The ki blast smashed into and through the Grimm's stomach, its black blood gushing out covering Ranma's upper body and face before he could dodge. He snarled angrily, rolling out from underneath the dead Goliath, its corpse crashing to the ground directly behind him.

"Fuck, can't gahh!" He never even saw the next blow coming. A kick from another Goliath caught him full in the side. Ranma felt two of his ribs go on that side, and he had no recourse but to roll with it, dodging two more blows even as he did so.

By this point 13 of the 20 Goliaths in the herd were dead, one Grimm having been killed by it's fellow after being crippled when Ranma dodged a blow during his initial dive to the ground. Four of the remainder were blind and stumbling, and three more were wounded, though none seriously, and one of the others was still stuck in the pit. Even so all of them remained, the blind Goliaths stumbling around, destroying trees and getting in the way of their fellows, who in turn were becoming increasingly angry and wild.

Ranma caught one of the blind Goliaths from behind, a Moko Takabasha going up it behind its hindquarters ripping its stomach apart. Beni was too busy dealing with an arm that had been broken by a lucky Goliath's kick to help, but Ranma was able to kill another beast in the next few seconds.

Knowing it was nearly useless against the Goliaths, Ranma used his mono-wire like a character he had seen once in a comic, jerking himself out of the path of another attack that would have trampled him under. At the same time Beni, broken arm and all, killed two more of the wounded beasts before a Goliath standing nearby got in a lucky blow hurling its head around. One of its tusks caught her in the side of her head with enough force to hurl her away and she nearly blacked out from the pain despite her aura protecting her.

"Beni!" Seeing this, Ranma quickly used his mono-wire to pull himself in that direction, rolling underneath the attacking Goliath and dodging using one of its feet to kick off the Goliath's back knees, slamming his hands again into the thing's stomach and letting loose with a Moko Takabasha that gutted this beast just like all the others.

Rolling out from under its falling body, Ranma saw the two survivors now coming towards him, trumpeting in fury. "RAH!" he roared his own answering cry before picking up a large tree trunk from nearby and hurling it sideways at the legs of the first one allowing it to roll underneath the things legs. That Grimm stumbled, allowing Ranma to leap past it, then roll underneath its fellows legs and a second later another Moko Takabasha shot out.

Before he could finish rolling out from underneath that Goliath it stumbled, it's back leg kicking out, catching Ranma full on in the chest hurling him backwards with another two, maybe three cracked ribs. But the other injuries he'd already taken had healed by that point, and Ranma flipped in midair, landing easily and coming back in on the attack of the last free Goliath. Nearby the trapped Goliath in the pit went down as Beni came back in on the attack, dozens of thin foot long needles appearing and shattering on the thing's Grimm mask before one found its eye socket and punched through after she thrust forward as hard as she could telekinetically.

Moments later, it was over and the two weary and ,in one case, wounded huntsman looked at one another. "Well that was fun wasn't it?" Ranma said brightly.

"If you ever, **ever** decide to do this again," Beni said angrily, reaching for his throat with both hands as if to strangle him, then wearily letting her arms fall as the pain from her broken arm registered once again. She sighed then shook her head. "At least get some of the other teachers to come along with us the next time all right?"

"Will do." Ranma said with a nod. "Still, you have to admit even as a group these Goliath's weren't much."

"They weren't much because of our ki attacks." Beni said sharply. "Don't get a swelled head. Our ki attacks and our ability to get underneath them and stay there was the key to this fight. How many Hunters are as agile as we are, how many have weapons that can do powerful enough attacks to break through that armor like our ki attacks do?"

She glared at Ranma, who sighed and after a moment's silence she supplied the answer. "Not many. Yes, we could have blinded them between us Glynda and I. In fact we could have blinded the entire herd with a single attack if she was here to use her telekinesis rather than force me to use both telekinesis and conjuration. But even so, every hit we took would've killed practically any other Hunter out there unless they had a Semblance which gave them extra durability."

"I also have no aura left to speak of, how are your ki reserves?"

Ranma shrugged. "Well enough, but you're right I did have to heal a few of my wounds. Cracked ribs."

"So let's not do this again. It was a good learning experience, but it was also a dangerous one."

"So… not good for a field trip then?" Ranma asked.

His tone was so deadpan as he delivered that line that Beni wondered if he was serious for a moment, before smacking him upside the head on general principle. "I need a drink." She then grinned, pulling out a sling for her arm. "Come on, I've been wanting to meet these twins of yours."

 **OOOOOOO**

Hei Days was jumping as Ranma and Beni entered, having taken the time to rip up a better sling for Beni's broken arm and Ranma had taken the time to change out of his armor. Looking around the club, Beni cocked an eyebrow, looking at Ranma thoughtfully. "Is it always this lively?" The music was good and the ambiance was ok, but the noise level and the crowd were a bit much in her opinion.

"Yeah pretty much." Ranma shrugged then began to lead her through the crowd toward one of the bars. Surprisingly he didn't see Junior anywhere, but he shrugged off that oddity for now. "Never got used to the lights, but the music's okay."

Before they reached the bar Miltia and Melanie spotted them, coming over from where they had been watching the crowd. "Ranma, we didn't expect you back so soon, what, the life of a teacher getting to you already?" Melanie asked.

"No, nothing like that, just wanted to introduce you to my sister. Gals, this is Beni, Beni this is Melanie and Miltia Malachite. Don't let their color sense fool you, the one in red is actually the nicer one."

Miltia giggled while Melanie scoffed, throwing her hair over her shoulder. "I'm only nice to people who deserve it. Anyone else can kiss my size three and a half heels."

"And I'll just bet people are lined up for the privilege." Beni replied, rolling her eyes. "Ladies, good to meet you, Ranma's told me a bit about you both. I have to say it's nice to know he made friends here, even if I don't really approve of criminal activities."

Melanie immediately took umbrage at this. "What's so criminal about being a bouncer?" She demanded. "And I wouldn't judge us little prude-in-boots, until you walk a mile in ours!"

"What did you just call me?" Beni asked dangerously, making Ranma suddenly very glad he'd taken possession of Saifa Toboe after the fight with the Goliaths. If he hadn't, Beni might already have attacked Melanie, though he wondered what had set her off like that.

"How did you break your arm, miss?" Miltia asked either out of real curiosity or to stave off the fight she could see coming Ranma didn't know.

It worked anyway, with Beni turning to the nicer sister, smiling slightly. "Just Beni please, I'm not that much older than you. As to the arm, my goof of a brother here decided we needed to deal with a bit of a Grimm issue, and we badly misjudged the opposition."

"I wouldn't say that, they're dead, we're alive after all." Ranma said smirking. "Anyway, I promised my sister a drink so can we move this to the bar or a booth?"

The four of them did so, and after grabbing a waiter to take Beni's order they moved to a booth on the second floor where the twins could continue to watch the rest of the club, always on the lookout for trouble of any sort. Miltia and Beni struck up a conversation about footwear and fighting in them.

At the same time, Ranma thanked Melanie for finding the hammock he had in his room, as well as the other pieces of furniture. "I plan to knock out the outer wall and replace it with windows soon, after that if you two want to come over and see that'd be great. Just don't try to pick a fight with Yang, or anyone else okay? Damages from that'd probably come out of my salary somehow."

"If Big Tits tries to pick a fight that's all on her" Melanie began before subsiding at Ranma's pleading look. "But I won't start anything, promise." She then smirked as the waiter arrived with Beni's drink a tall, thin glass. "Huh, that's a tall drink for such a short woman, you sure you can handle it?"

Beni grabbed the drink and, looking Melanie in the eye, drained half of it in one go before setting it down. "That's the second time you've commented on my height. Sort of funny coming from a short ass like you, especially since I at least don't need to dress like a marionette to make myself feel pretty." Beni was actually a few inches shorter than the twins, but even dressed in her kimono it was obvious she was more than a bit chestier too.

Melanie glowered angrily, but Ranma cut in quickly. "Girls, I don't want ta have to separate you." _No truer words were ever spoken…_ "So before this goes pear shaped, how about you both have a drink on me, okay?"

"That's not a bad idea." Melanie said, grinning evilly. "But why not combine the two? You up for a little competition, Shorty?"

"Bring it on, you Snow White wannabe." Beni replied, her own lips twisting into an evil grin.

 **OOOOOOO**

Yang wearily scratched at her belly, grumbling as she moved away from team Ruby's bathroom back to her bed, hoping she could get back to sleep quickly. Her thoughts were interrupted however as she heard a loud, and very drunk, female voice singing off-key outside somewhere. _Huh, someone had a little too much fun last night._

Moving quickly, she looked out the window above her bed, trying to catch a glimpse of the noisy individual, noticing absently that Blake had woken up and joined her, while the two fun-sized members of team Ruby slept on. Blake pointed, and Yang followed the movement seeing two people, silhouettes at this distance, moving down Beacon's main boulevard. One was obviously leaning on the other, stumbling every few steps, while the other seemed sober.

When they entered the light from one of the path's lamps, Yang recognized Ranma and Beni, and began to make out some of the words Beni was shouting. They were in Asian, a language her father had taught her as part of telling her about her heritage, but so slurred she couldn't make much of them out at first. She looked at Blake who shrugged incomprehension.

When they reached the intersection with the walkway that would take them to the teacher's dorms however they got close enough for Yang to make out the words, and she quickly clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle her guffaws. She still couldn't make out all the words but enough. The words for 'teacher', 'love', 'spank', and even dirtier words were recognizable among the rest of the drunken song.

Blake nudged Yang, but Yang shook her head, getting control of herself quickly, leaning over to whisper in the other girl's ear. "Don't worry about it, just a… a bit of a dirty song, the lyrics are damn funny." Blake had known Yang only half a day but even so that idea seemed plausible and she nodded, moving over to bed.

Meanwhile, one other individual was just getting into bed. Glynda routinely stayed up to around one in the morning working on paperwork, and the first day of class was no exception. She had to correlate the report from team Rust about the latest Grimm movements near the Delian Plains, and then go over the changes to the current lesson plans her fellow teachers had submitted.

She looked up from pulling the covers back as the sound of Beni's voice reached her, singing in Asian and obviously drunk. _Good grief, I wonder what happened? And… is she singing about teaching or something?_ Glynda recognized the word sifu in there, but couldn't speak Asian so had no idea about the rest of the lyrics, only that Beni seemed to be rather passionate about the subject.

Just as she was about to go out and check on her friend the singing stopped, followed soon after by the sounds of feet towards Beni's room, which was located along the same hallway as Glynda's. She sighed, deciding she was too tired to deal with this right now, then turned back to bed, sighing in bliss as she laid down. _I'll talk to her tomorrow, that song sounded interesting, but I wonder what it means?_

 **OOOOOOO**

None of the freshmen were certain what to expect as they headed into Professor Goodwitch's classroom. The fact that the classroom wasn't really a classroom in the classical sense but a series of tiers looking out over an arena from three directions gave many of them pause while others grew excited. The fourth wall was also dominated by a large screen of some kind, which at the moment was showing a forest glade. It was clean, not a shred of dust or dirt anywhere to be seen, and the floor looked the solid stone, which Yang thought was a good probably a good thing.

She sighed as she sat down, stretching her legs out and slowly rubbing her calf and thighs. Yang thought she was in pretty damn good shape thank you, and she was. But she wasn't used to using kicks in her combat, and some of the moves Ranma had forced her to do that morning had pulled her muscles in ways she'd not felt before.

She could lift up to 500 pounds with her legs but actually performing a high kick, or flipping herself over several hundred times? That was a little beyond her. She just wasn't that flexible.

Ruby patted her leg. "Are you sure you don't want to rest?"

"When exactly did Professor Goodwitch give the impression she'd let anyone rest?" Yang quipped. She then ruffled her sister's hair, grinning as the cute little cherub pouted and smacked her hand away. "I'm good little sister, trust me. Just some exercises that Ranma forced me to do this morning."

"Oh, is that what they are calling it these days?" Weiss asked archly as she sat down on rubies other side. "I can't believe you're still trying to flirt with a teacher!"

"That teacher isn't that much older than we are, and he's never said he wants to be treated like a teacher outside of class. And three, I flirted with him way before he actually became a teacher!" Yang said, smirking.

"Is that your way of saying you called dibs?" Blake asked, sitting on Yang's other side, while Nora and Pyrrha sat down in the row of bleachers in front of team Ruby. Thanks to her armor Pyrrha took a long time to get changed and was often the last out. But surprisingly today she had beaten both boys if by only a little bit.

"You can't call dibs on a guy." Yang said shaking his head. "Unfortunately, they've got minds of their own."

"It's funny you should mention dibs and guys having minds of their own." Jaune said as he and Ren sat down next to their prospective partners. "Because Cardin Winchester seems to have taken a liking to you Yang."

"Who?" Yang asked blankly, then flicked her eyes in the direction Jaune twitched his head. She saw a large teen, possibly a foot and a half taller than Jaune, who was the tallest person on the two teams and far wider in the shoulders than any of them. He was wearing what looks like a prototypical knight's outfit and a large mace sat in the chair to one side of him. In comparison the three boys sitting around him looked almost frail despite the fact that they were simply normal teenage-sized.

"Oh no not again," Yang muttered, shaking her head. The girls all looked at her and she shrugged. "Big guy on campus takes a liking to the best girl on campus, that kind of thing. I'm sure you've run into it Weiss, and maybe you too Pyrrha." Nora had Ren, while Blake had mentioned being self-taught last night.

"Can't say I have," Weiss said, shaking her head. "I never went to public schools or even a training academy."

"Nor I," Pyrrha said with a shrug. "Oh there was the occasional gladiator in the tournaments who thought he was worth my time outside of the ring, but none of them really wished to associate with me after I beat them. A decided upside in some cases believe me."

"Well I've dealt with this kind of thing before." Yang said smiling happily at the memories, while Ruby buried her head in her hands. "Some guy got it into his head that just because he had wide shoulders or thought he had a big… weapon that he was worth my time."

The innuendo went right over Ruby's head while Nora cackled, Pyrrha and Weiss flushed as their virgin minds were assaulted by the imagery it invoked, and Blake merely rolled their eyes as the two boys looked away deliberately. "Then after I smashed him a few good ones in the training area, he'd go away. Hopefully this time I won't actually have to break his arms. What'd this Cardin guy actually say?"

"He simply called dibs, saying 'that hot pair is mine'." Jaune said disgustedly spitting to one side. At the odd looks he was getting from the girls he shrugged. "I have seven sisters you think I haven't heard that crap before? The last time was about one of the twins." He sighed happily. "His teeth made a most pleasant clacking sound as I smashed his face in."

Most of the girls laughed, while Weiss and Blake simply shook their heads, with Weiss not at all happy at that use of force. Wishing to get off this topic, Ruby asked him, "Do you have any other pictures of your sisters?"

"Lots," Jaune replied pulling out his scroll and opening it to show them a few pictures. After a few Weiss agreed that punching the moron's face in for flirting with the younger sister was an appropriate response. A few of the other female freshman came over to coo with the pictures. In particular the few where Jaune was hanging out with his younger sisters horsing around or helping them do their homework were an instant hit. Pyrrha in particular went gaga over those, and even Weiss broke into a smile.

That passed the time until everyone was out up from changing into their training gear and Goodwitch called for attention. She did this very simply by moving from where she had been standing by the screen to the center of the arena, and slapping the her riding crop against the palm of her other hand once. Just **once**. The sound of that sharp retort and her sheer presence was enough to stop all conversation immediately.

Nonetheless, she waited a few seconds as the freshman all turned to her, hurriedly shutting down scrolls, dropping their feet to the floor etc. Once she was certain that she had their complete and undivided attention, Glynda began. "Good morning class. My name is Professor Glynda Goodwitch. You will call me Professor or Professor Goodwitch. I am the combat training instructor here at Beacon Academy. As you no doubt should already be aware, this class constitutes around 40 percent of your time here at Beacon, escalating as the years go on to something like 65 percent in the senior year."

 _If you're not aware of that, why the hell are you here?_ Glynda thought to herself shaking her head. She'd made this speech several times, but she always thought that line was rather silly frankly. Today was even worse, considering she was still wondering what her protégé had been shouting about last night. She didn't speak Chinese, and so had no idea, nor did any of the Professors. If she had thought of it at the time, she could've possibly looked it up on her scroll, but by the time she thought of that, the actual words had gone out of her head.

Shaking herself slightly, Glynda returned to the here and now. "In freshman year, this course is broken into three separate days. One, today, is physical training. I will train you in strength, endurance, speed and most importantly Aura endurance. We will meet here in this classroom, but then move to the gym next-door for the physical portion and, on the other side, to the meditation area."

"Day two is tomorrow, as those of you who have looked at your schedules should know. We are scheduled for the same time tomorrow. That day will be the start of group and combat training. During that class, I will watch each team in turn perform against simulated Grimm create through hard light technology." With that, she pressed some buttons on her scroll.

That scroll was a special one, larger by far than most normal scrolls. It had to be to input the various command and controls for the training room's holographic projection system. It was a hard light system, almost like those used in the CCT Towers, but not quite because someone could actually feel the impact of these. Not as much is the real thing of course, but enough to be a training tool. It was the latest technology to come out of the Schnee think tanks, and the fact Ozpin had gotten it for them last year had been a major coup for Beacon.

At her command several dozen Grimm appeared scattered around the training area. "Each team will be asked to come down and fight against a specific number of Grimm in a specific environment." At the last word the Grimm disappeared replaced by a forest floor then a craggy cliff, and finally a desert which was populated by more Grimm.

"During these battles, I will be making note, and coming up with suggestions for both your individual and team styles and tactics. I will present these to you at the end of your time, and by Wednesday next week, I will expect to see progress on those problems." Glynda glared out over her spectacles that each team in turn, causing many of them to flinch.

She was most gratified to see that Yang and Ruby still retained some fear of her. Good, Glynda suspected that those sisters would-be troublemakers in the future. _Of course, troublemakers usually do make the best huntresses._ She thought somewhat fondly. Coco and Charlotte both were somewhat troublesome, as were a few others over the years.

Ozpin and a few others Glynda had gone to school with would be quick to point out that Glynda too had been a troublemaker when she was in school. Of course no-one who knew her now would ever believe that. Nor would they ever find the speaker's bodies afterward.

"The penalty for not showing progress on a weekly basis is a loss of privileges to the gym, forge and other things of that nature. I will not hand out grades for anything in this classroom: this is combat, if you survive and if you keep on getting better **that** is all that matters. However at the end of the year you will be sent on various missions with instructors. They will grade your progress on those missions, and if you do not perform to Beacon standards, regardless of the mission type, I will do my utmost to see you expelled between this year and the next."

"I will be noting down your general attitude, your willingness to take instruction, your ability to learn and most importantly your readiness to correct any holes or intrinsic weak points in your personal or team styles. I will not be taking role as some of my fellow Professors do." she said sternly. "If you do not **care** enough to be here every day on time, I do not care enough to teach you."

She let that sink in for a moment before going on. "On Friday we will again meet here, and remain here. That day is devoted to personal combat. I will be pitting you against one another in tournament style matches during that lesson."

Glynda carefully did not look at directly at Pyrrha, who she noted looked rather put out. _If I had come to Beacon to get away from the tournament life I would feel irritated right now too._ But with the Vytal Festival coming up next semester Ozpin had told Glynda to actually emphasize that aspect despite her own concerns.

However she and Benzaiten had come up with a way to make even simple one on one matches more of a learning experience. "If I feel that your personal skill set requires it, I will also determine that you need a handicap of some kind. I may also shout out that you are currently handicapped with an injury, to better give you an idea of how to fight through wounds and injuries in the field."

She heard a scoff from one of her listeners, and turned staring. "Do you have a problem with what I just said Mr. Lark?"

Sky Lark was the son of a rather influential politician, who had gray hair slicked back and down to his shoulders who wore a relatively well-made set of full body armor. He was routinely dwarfed by his friend Cardin Winchester, who was easily the largest and broadest of the freshman. That Cardin would in turn be dwarfed by Yatsuhashi was something that amused Glynda a bit. "Well ma'am, I mean if we've got Aura how likely is it that we'll be injured? If we get injured, we should know that we need to retreat entirely, not keep fighting."

"Retreat is not always an option Mr. Lark." Glynda said sternly. "If you are on a mission to defend a town, a caravan, or ship, you cannot simply retreat from combat. Because if you do people die." She probably shouldn't have to spell that out, but from the shocked expressions on a few of their faces Glynda had been correct to do so. She smiled somewhat approvingly however that team Juniper, team Ruby, and several others did not look surprised. _**Good.**_

"Moreover, you are incorrect that Aura will always be able to stop you from being injured. Your Aura only protects you from external injuries. You can still twist your ankle, or break a bone in your arm when you fall badly. Aura cannot solve physics ladies and gentlemen."

Where she was sitting Yang nodded, while Ruby leaned into her shoulder lightly, allowing Yang to pull her into a hug. Ruby had injured herself rather badly a few times after she discovered her Semblance simply because she hadn't realized that her Aura wouldn't protect her from putting a foot wrong when she was running at full speed.

Ruby was lucky to have only broken her legs rather than shearing them off at the speed she could move. And it had been Yang who had found her and carried her to the nearest hospital both times then yelled at her before their father came in to blubber about his baby being injured.

All the others seemed to notice this little byplay and many of them nodded wordlessly indicating that she'd had their share of screw ups, with Weiss going so far as to actually take Ruby's other hand for a moment squeezing it. Ruby didn't let go of the hand however, pulling the feebly protesting girl into a one armed hug before letting her go.

"Now," Glynda said smacking her riding crop once again into one of her palms. "Teams Ruby, Juniper, Moss, and Purple with me please. The other four teams will follow my assistant Professor Benzaiten." She gestured to the doorway, where Benzaiten was standing. Her arm was in a sling Glynda noticed, frowning slightly. This was the first time she'd seen her today, the younger woman not having shown up for breakfast as normal.

She moved over as the teams sorted themselves out, moving into single files towards the two teachers. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"My brother and I went out on a little investigative mission…" Benzaiten said lightly, wincing as she looked away from her teacher. _Oh ancestors, I hope she didn't hear me last night!_

"And then what, he brought you out for drinks? You were rather loud last night. I'm not going to try to tell you what to do in your spare time Benzaiten, but please remember you need to set an example for the students? And," Glynda said leaning could conspiratorially, "if you need to drink, you can always grab something and come to my room. You don't have to go out to get drunk."

Benzaiten flushed at the older woman's proximity for a moment, but nodded her head. "I'll remember that sifu, thank you. And we wouldn't have actually… well **I** wouldn't have actually gotten drunk, except that one of Ranma's friends drinks like a fish, and had made a few comments about my height."

"Ahh." Glynda said, smiling lightly. She knew that Benzaiten had a thing about her height, so that made sense to her. Then her smile widened just slightly, having turned away from the students so none could see. "You know, you warned the headmaster and I about Ranma having a chaotic effect on those around him, you never said he was a bad influence on you personally."

"I try not to think about it." Beni replied, shuddering dramatically, causing Glynda to nearly snort in laughter.

"Is your brother going to follow you or me today?" she asked, jerking her head upward slightly. Ranma again was hiding near the roof, though this time he was actually sticking to the ceiling rather than sitting on a rafter. _I wonder how he does that?_

"Probably you." Benzaiten said. "After all, once you've seen one gym you've seen them all."

"And you'll be alright with only one arm?"

Beni nodded. She couldn't heal nearly as quickly as Ranma. While Ranma could heal a broken bone in a matter of minutes unless his ki reserves were dangerously low, Beni would take a little over two days to heal the same injury. "I'll be fine." She smirked suddenly. "And it might burst some egos if the students watch me lift or bench the same amount of weights they need to use two hands for with one."

Glynda nodded with her own answering smile, making a mental note to bring up the song Beni had shouted last night some other time, then moved off as the students finally joined them by the arena entrance. As she did so, Glynda wondered why Yang was smirking at Benzaiten...

Ranma was rather impressed after Glynda's class, and told her so. She controlled the class so easily and her lessons on how to control your own aura and manipulate it was impressive and easy to follow. It surprised him a lot frankly, as had the fact that she had been able to spot practically every student's Semblance if they had one already. And individual instructions during meditation time she came up with ways they could train those Semblance on their own time, building up their Auras and their ability to use their Semblances for longer periods of time.

The next day Ranma met up with Glynda after her Wednesday class to talk about the paperwork he had given her the evening before. Again Ranma had come away from her class extremely impressed. Her verbal commands and suggestions to the teams made sense and were very pointed, she generally was a very good teacher combat teacher.

She couldn't give the students the one-on-one instruction that Ranma now realized was why he was so good, or at least one of the reasons why he was so good. But Glynda tried her best to give each student some individualized instruction, and it was impressive how much she had noticed through the initiation and the classes so far.

Glynda smiled slightly at his praise then returned it gesturing to the lesson plan in front of them. "This looks good Ranma, I will admit to being surprised. I hadn't thought much of your inclusion here at Beacon, I understood the reasoning behind it, but…" she shrugged.

"Understandable," Ranma laughed. "And I ain't exactly the most organized guy. You'll still be sitting in on the first class right?"

Glynda nodded then looked at him sideways, pushing her glasses up her nose slightly. "By the way, there were reports recently of a herd of the Goliaths suddenly going missing. We had them under observation via remote-controlled drones, and they don't seem to be in the area anymore. But there **were** signs of a rather large fight, and a pit of all things in one of their runs."

"Yeah that was me and my sister" Ranma replied with a smile. "I hadn't fought Goliaths before and wanted to see other stacked up. I don't think they're really S-class, not like a Leo is or a Jambavan but killing them certainly does take some doing."

"It does indeed," Glynda said with a faint frown.

The two of them talked about that battle for a time, then worked on his paperwork in particular how Ranma was going to try to grade or keep track of the student's progress until Benzaiten joined him smiling slightly. Glynda looked up, and smiled in welcome, moving away from the table and pulling up another chair for her young protégé. " How went the sociological experiment?"

"It went very well actually Jaune in particular surprised me in a most pleasant way."

"Sociological experiment?" Ranma asked. "What the heck does that mean?"

"Well, you know how Faunus regularly face bigotry?"

"Yeah I've always thought that was rather fucking stupid." Ranma said, ignoring Glynda's glare at his curse, he felt it was warranted. "After all, Grimm encroach more every year even in this 'time of peace,'" he said, making quote marks in the air as he said the last three words. "And humans and Faunus think it's a good idea to discriminate against one another? Or discriminate on one side as well as enslaving according to a few people I've talked to, and terrorize on the other really."

Glynda winced. Ragnar Seabreeze's family was originally from Atlas, and his father had worked in a Schnee mine there for three decades before they had escaped across the ocean. Glynda had met the man once, and knew about the medical problems he faced from his time there. The Faunus in those mines weren't treated quite like slaves, but they were so damn close the label didn't really matter.

"Exactly. And as Hunters, we have to be willing to put our lives on the line on our missions for our fellow man on nearly any mission we're assigned. Taking the time to make certain that he or she is the right sort of race is stupid in the extreme. So I came up with a bit of experiment, and got a rather nice if extremely soft-spoken second year named Velvet to help me."

 **Flashback:**

"Let go of me!" Velvet whimpered, trying to pull away from a freshman's grip on her ears without tearing them out. Cardin, the large freshman, simply laughed continuing to pull on the rabbit Faunus' ears painfully while the rest of team CRDL laughed along with their hulking leader.

Teams Juniper and Ruby (or Team Awesome as Nora called them) were sitting nearby and heard this. Jaune scowled angrily, sharing a quick glance with Ren which their partners and friends caught. "Cardin's got a big head and is a bit of a bully but this is beyond the pale!"

"I agree, it's shameful!" Pyrrha said, a scowl on her face. "People who use their strength to bully others are the lowest of the low."

While Weiss nodded and Ruby and Yang growled agreement Blake frowned angrily, looking around and sighing when no one stepped forward, not even the two cafeteria monitors. _So much for Beacon being better than the other academies._ Then her head whipped around as Jaune stood up quickly followed by the rest of his team. The next thing she knew she and the rest of Team Ruby had followed them with Yang in the lead.

"Let her go now!" Jaune said, hand clamping down on Cardin's hand just behind the wrist.

While Velvet looked at him with relief, Cardin turned, not releasing his hold on her ears. "Or what Jauney-boy? You gonna sic your little harem on me?" He asked, sneering at the girls behind the blonde knight. "Can't you fight your own battles?"

The girls behind Jaune bristled, but Jaune remained calm as he answered. "I can fight my own battles Cardin, which I've proved time and again, even during the Fall of Semaphore. So did Sheera Orchid, Lux Lumiere, Lester Moorvane, Reginald Garcon, and others."

The bully's face scrunched up as he tried to think of why Jaune was mentioning random names at the moment but Jaune went on quickly, staring first at him then the rest of CRDL. "Don't recognize them? I would be surprised if you did. They were Faunus, Hunters and Huntresses who died during the battle. Just like this lady no doubt would have. They died, so that others, Faunus and human alike could live. And you know what, they never once checked to make sure those they were saving were Faunus or human. Because they knew that Hunters have no time for prejudices our mission, our overarching goal is too damn important to care about crap like that. Would you have done the same?"

Cardin's face went from confused to enraged as he realized Jaune was calling him a coward, though that actually wasn't the primary reason behind Jaune's words. He let go of Velvet and was about to reach for Jaune but then grunted in agony as a fist buried itself into his stomach, the blow's force barely blunted mitigated by his aura. He went to his knees and the rest of his team tried to stand up, only to find members of Team Awesome already standing behind them, pressing them back into their seats.

He looked up at Yang, who was grinning down at him, but there was nothing amusing in the expression. "Nice speech Jaune, but muscle-heads like this learn best when the lessons accompanied by some pain."

She reached down, lifting the larger Cardin armor and all into the air easily without a hint of her Semblance helping her. It was a show of strength that would have surprised many of the watchers, had they not been so engrossed in the drama playing out in front of them. "Now you listen to me Winchester. I don't care what you think or feel inside that thick skull of yours, but you let your prejudices out against Faunus around me, I'm going to put you into traction."

Pyrrha nodded from where she was holding Sky Lark down in his chair despite the boy's attempts to push out of her grip. "Not three days into the school year and you already have a reputation as a bully Cardin. That's simply appalling, and I for one will not stand for it. Racism is disgusting in any form, but at least here we don't have to sit still for it!"

"Well said, all of you." A quiet voice said from near the rafters above them. Beni dropped down, landing lightly as she smiled at the two teams that had stepped forward, before frowning out at the rest of the people in the cafeteria. "This was a test, not just to find out if we had any racists among this class, but to see how you would all react to seeing something wrong going on in front of you. Congratulations, you all failed, save for these two teams."

There was some muttering at that, but Beni's eyes were like a laser as she raked the cafeteria with her glare from one end to the other. "For evil to win good men must do nothing. We are Hunters, we have an obligation, a duty to do what we can to right wrongs. This goes well beyond upholding the laws of the country we are currently in or dealing with Grimm. We Hunters stand against racism and prejudice just as much as we do terrorism and Grimm attacks."

"If you do not have the courage to correct your fellow man when they are doing something like this," she went on, gesturing to team CRDL, "Then say so now so we don't spend valuable time and effort teaching you. If you have racist thoughts of your own, keep them in your **fucking** heads." The curse snapped out like a whip, and nearly everyone in the cafeteria flinched. "Hunters are above such things."

She glared around her one last time, making certain to pin both of the cafeteria monitors in particular who flinched under her gaze, before turning to Velvet with a faint smile. "And before you think that Velvet is an easy mark Cardin let me tell you that she was merely playing that role for this test. Velvet?"

"Yes miss." Velvet said, standing upright with a faint smile. She didn't like violence, but she knew a show of force now would make her life easier later on. With that in mind, she kicked out, her leg smashing into and through a nearby table. The cafeteria tables were nearly two hundred pounds of oak, but the table shattered under her kick swiftly.

Job done, Velvet allowed her leg to fall, as she smiled brightly at the eight freshmen who had stood up for her. The girls were all looking at her approvingly, with the youngest in particular grinning widely. Jaune and the other boy merely nodded, understanding she could have stood up for herself if she had wanted to.

Beni smiled at one of her favored students then looked at Cardin and his team. "There will be no more of this racist bullshit, am I clear?" Cardin grunted, then as Beni continued to stare at him he mumbled a response. With a final nod at Velvet, Beni turned, leaving the cafeteria quickly.

The tension lasted for a few moments as CRDL made their way out of the cafeteria, glaring at all and sundry but unwilling to stay there after being dressed down in such a manner. But then Ruby spoke up to Velvet, poking her fingers together as she looked at the older girl's ears. "U, Um, can, can I touch your ears please? They look so soft…"

 **End Flashback**

Ranma grinned. "Good on Jaune and all the others."

"I agree," Glynda said with a faint smile. "Jaune has definitely begun to step up to fulfill the promise that Professor Ozpin saw him. I'll admit to being surprised frankly, I thought he was a bit of a follower myself. How could he not be with those older sisters of his?"

Ranma shrugged having only met one of the older sisters in question, one of the older twins actually. The other twin apparently was a prodigy and had accelerated through Semaphore Academy and gone on to Shade at the very early age of 15 graduating within two years and was now out in the field with her team. He also didn't like being reminded of that moment, because it brought to mind his concerns about the Ozzy's interest in Ruby.

"Do you think that team Cardinal will be an issue going forward?" Glynda asked, pulling Ranma from his musings.

"I don't know. They want to be A-grade Hunters, or at least Cardin and Sky do, I'm not certain about the other two. But I don't think they have the mentality for it. Still, we'll see. If not, we can always come up with some interesting punishments for them can't we?"

All three teachers smirked evilly at one another, before once again turning to the paperwork for Ranma's class.

 **OOOOOOO**

By the time Thursday came around the news that Ranma was the Azure Warden had spread to the rest of the school, let alone those freshmen who hadn't been nearby when he gave his little speech in the locker room prior to their initiation. A lot of them were interested in what he could teach them, but the specific topic was sort of strange.

The class met up in a normal classroom, and when the students walking on that was sitting on the desk with his feet under him seemingly meditating. Glynda was there as well, leaning against the far wall from the doorway. Despite the older blonde's presence Yang grinned and was moving towards Ranma to try to 'wake him up' but her sister had Weiss grabbed her by the arms and pulled her towards the chairs while their friends laughed.

Ranma sat there with his eyes closed until about five minutes had passed. Then he opened his eyes looking at them all with a small smirk on his face. "All right, I figure everyone's here that's going to be. I'm not going to call role if you're not going to show up to learn I don't care enough to go out of my way to teach you."

He stood up quickly, so quickly and so smoothly it startled a few nearby students into flinching away. "Now, you all are probably aware, my name's Ranma. I'm also known as the Azure Warden for some reason. Yes, I was at the Fall of Semaphore and yes I was the last one out. **No** I don't consider that a victory and if anyone here does, keep it to yourselves. That was a loss in anyone's book, we lost lives and we lost the Academy. We might've gotten a lot of the people out, but we didn't get them all out, which is the only kind of victory I would have accepted."

After that Ranma went on in the ensuing silence, looking from face to face. "I spent the next few years out in the Grimm lands."

There were several scoffs at that, and he smirked evilly. "Yes, I did. I saw Grimm out there that very few Hunters ever see, I moved among them and through them, and I can show you how to do the same. Most Hunters and Huntresses aren't really hunters in the old style, able to stalk their prey silently and then return home without leaving any trace behind. I'm going to teach you how to do that."

"I'm going to teach you how to move through any kind of environment without leaving a trace. I'm going to teach you to move silently," Ranma said glaring at Cardin and surprisingly Pyrrha, the two most heavily armored individuals in the room. In response Pyrrha looked down at herself, smirking a little as she did. She knew her armor never clinked or rattled, whereas Cardin sounded like a blacksmith's shop every time he moved.

"I'm also going to teach you about the various Grimm types I saw, their weaknesses, how they think how they move in the wild." From her place Glynda nodded, happy Ranma was going to cover for Port's deficiencies. The teens too all looked interested.

"I'm going to teach you how to cook, how to live off the land, what you can and cannot eat. Did you know that some Grimm actually eat out in the wild, that you can poison them if you want to?" There were some looks of surprise at that, including from Glynda who'd never heard that before. "It's true."

"However," Ranma clapped his hands together. "One thing you need in abundance to live out in the wilds is the ability to run silently, and for long periods of time. So endurance is a definite must. To that end, every class will start with an hour and a half running around campus. We'll be adding both weights and increasing our speed during the runt as the year goes along."

"And no Ruby," he said smirking a young girl. "You can't use your Semblance for this." Ruby pouted, but nodded understanding. "Though I bet you'll be surprised how much speed and endurance running normally will add to your Semblance."

"I'll be coming up with ideas for obstacle courses as well to show you how to move quickly over one terrain or silently over another. And we will be taking a **lot** of field trips as soon as possible. Today we'll cover the Grimm I saw during Initiation, how they think, move, and how to avoid them or kill them as silently as possible. So before we start our first run, any questions on anything else?"

Weiss held up her hand quickly. "Equipment," she said promptly. "Should we start practicing carrying our equipment silently now and if so, besides the normal toiletries and sleeping bag, what do you think is most necessary?"

After that prompting the rest of the class began to throw out several different questions, mostly about the types of terrain Ranma had personally dealt with, as well as the most dangerous Grimm to run into if you were trying to move silently through the forests. Ranma fielded them all expertly and quickly.

The most interesting question came from Yang. "It's a proven fact that Grimm feel negative emotions. How does that effect your ability to hide from them?"

"A lot, I have to admit. All Grimm types will become more active or anxious around a person feeling fear, hopelessness or anger. However, only B-rank or above will be able to use such feelings to find a single person if that person is hiding from their normal senses. Anger and hate however don't seem to attract Grimm as much as fear, I saw Grimm ignore angry Hunters to attack fleeing civilians during the fall of Semaphore. Be aware of your emotions and control them in the field, and hell, ya might find its actually fun to sneak around. I know I thought it was." Ranma replied.

Several more minutes went by then as the questions petered out Ranma held up a hand and pointed out the door. "And now, you've got five minutes to change and meet me outside. If you're late, I'm going to start coming up with very some cruel and malicious punishments involving public embarrassment. Oh, and in that same topic, you don't want me to pass you twice out there. You just don't."

"Wait," Ruby said holding up a hand as Pyrrha began to giggle having remembered the first time she and Ranma had met. "You're going to be joining us?"

"Of course," Ranma said with a nod.

At that Yang, with a look at the giggling Pyrrha, rushed out followed rapidly by the rest of the class.

Glynda nodded to Ranma, holding a piece of paper upon which she had written a few notes. Not many, but a few. "Fine job," she said nodding her head. "Will talk about it later of course, but your introduction was excellent. You fielded those questions very well, and I think you have grabbed most of the students' attention. It will be interesting to see how they deal with the rest of the class, but if I was giving you a grade for this, I'd have to give you an A."

"Good, but the next bit is the hard part. Seeing how much info they retain will be interesting. Now if you excuse me, I've got a class ta humilia, I mean teach." With that Ranma raced off, easily passing the students and beating them outside by a wide margin.

Luckily for the freshman, Ranma held back that first day and didn't pass any of them, though he came close to doing so with the slowest teens. This first class he just wanted to get a feel for their various problems, the next class he'd home in on those and attack without mercy.

Cardin for example needed to learn how to move quietly and get a bit more humble pie shoved in his face. Weiss, Ruby and Ren needed to build up a lot more endurance, along with several other freshman, though the most problem was noise related, with only Blake and Ren moving anywhere near quiet enough, with Yang, Nora and surprisingly to Ranma, Pyrrha in the next tier.

The rest of the class, which he held outside by the cliffs, proceeded in much the same way. Ranma grabbed their attention with a few odd facts about each of the local Grimm type, talked them into how to move around the forest without drawing any attention, then how to silently kill each Grimm species in turn.

After around three hours Ranma sent them off talking happily among themselves, happy with how his first class had gone. Of course, the real test would be their first field trip, but Ranma was feeling cautiously optimistic as he watched Yang being dragged off by her teammates.

 **OOOOOOO**

To her friends in Juniper, at first Pyrrha didn't seem any different Friday morning than any other morning. She had trouble getting up as was normal, and something she'd been forced to threaten Nora about sharing with other people more than once. But once she'd had her tea and a nice hot shower she looked fine.

Since they didn't have any classes but Professor Goodwitch's scheduled on Fridays, they had the morning to themselves. So Pyrrha simply sat in a chair stroking her hair occasionally with a brush turning a page in a book open on the desk in front of her every so often. Yang had suggested she try something new with her hair outside of her armor, and this was her first attempt, a tight braid falling down one side of her chest.

But as the others glanced at her they realized there was something about her manner, a certain tense excitement in her body language perhaps that they could just barely sense. Despite her air of pleasant peacefulness, despite her humming slightly as she stroked her hair, there was a fire in her eyes, an excitement to them.

Nora spotted it first, and grinned, knowing exactly what her female teammate was looking forward to, while Ren and Jaune were a little slower on the uptake. "Someone's looking forward to this afternoon," she teased. "You look like I do whenever I talk Renny into taking me to an all-you-can-eat restaurant that serves pancakes."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Pyrrha said primly, but her eyes still held that dangerous light hidden in their emerald depths.

Even complete strangers they walked past in the hallways seemed to notice something, giving the Invincible Girl a wider berth than normal. They nearly bumped into Cardin and his team in the halls. He had been looking for any excuse to bully any of the students that had humiliated him on Wednesday, but Winchester took one look at Pyrrha and backed away quickly.

Surprisingly they discovered at lunch that even their friends could notice something was off with Pyrrha. Blake had the most negative reaction twitching occasionally throughout lunch. The former White Fang operative was fighting her fight or flight instincts being this near the girl.

Blake's partner on the other hand while noting Blake's reaction simply grinned at the statuesque redhead. "Looking forward to fighting Ranma? Trust me it's an interesting experience."

"You mentioned having fought him once before."" Pyrrha said, leaning forward eagerly. "Who won may I ask?"

"He did," Yang said without any heat. "Rather irritatingly easily too. Apparently I'm too much of a one trick pony, something he and I have started to correct in our spars in the mornings. Do you want any advice?"

Pyrrha quickly shook her head, making a mental note about morning spars. _Ugh, mornings, why did it have to be mornings?_ "No, that wouldn't be fair. If this was a competition, then perhaps I would, but as it is now. This is just a friendly match between us."

Yang scratched at her chin thoughtfully. She helped it really would be a friendly match, but given the competitive nature of her two friends she doubted it would remain so. It did surprise her though to realize that she knew Ranma would win. Not just because he had beaten her too, she'd talked to Jaune and gotten a good idea of the skills Ranma could bring to the fight. She'd also seen Pyrrha in action on Wednesday, and knew she was damn good.

 _But she just doesn't seem to have the base stats Ranma does. Worse, I think he can simply outlast her too, mhmm that stamina, no bad Yang! Concentrate on the coming match._ "Should be fun to watch anyway." She said aloud.

The two teams talked throughout the rest of the meal, before heading toward Professor Goodwitch's classroom. To Pyrrha's disappointment, Ranma wasn't there waiting for them, then she remembered that their match was actually happening after class, not during and she sighed sadly. Her sigh drew some chuckles from her friends, but she smiled at their good-natured ribbing before heading to the locker room to get changed like all the others.

Sitting down next to Jaune on one side and Yang on the other, she took out Akuo, and began to look at its edge, ignoring the matches going on below. As Glynda had predicted, Pyrrha had nothing to learn from a class about tournament matches.

She only paid attention when one of her teammates or team Ruby was called up, cheering politely as they all won their matches rather handily. The only match of any interest occurred when Cardin was called down to face Jaune. His team had lost every match, called down to fight Yang, Ren and Scott Free of team MOSS.

Because of this the would-be bully was eager to regain some of his team's pride. Jaune however outmaneuvered and out-thought the larger, stronger Cardin, not even taking a single hit from Winchester's massive mace. Even Jaune's Aura wouldn't have been able to stand many hits from that thing. But eventually his greater speed allowed him to wear down the larger boy's aura until Glynda called the match in his favor.

Eventually most of the students had gone, and Ranma had yet to appear. Pyrrha was beginning to think that something had come up, only to catch sight of him entering the doorway, causing her to sigh in relief before an eager smile appeared on her face.

Glynda cocked an eyebrow at him, and he grinned cheerfully at Beacon's sternest teacher who rolled her eyes at him, then continued on with their classes until they were all finished save for Pyrrha. After a final round of suggestions to the teens on what they needed to train in on their own Professor Goodwitch dismissed the class, thankful that most of the students hadn't heard about Ranma and Pyrrha's match.

 _Good, at least this time the rumor mill has failed to keep abreast of things. I agreed the match was a good idea, but that doesn't mean I want all the students to think they can just challenge any of us teachers anytime they want. That kind of thing could undermine our authority._

However she was unsurprised that all of team Ruby and Juniper stayed where they were as Ranma came over. "You sure we can use this area? I don't want to put you out or anything." he asked.

"I'm positive I want you two to fight in a controlled environment." Glynda replied dryly. "However I'll be staying to observe. I have no idea how, but Professor Ozpin found out and decided you both needed a neutral observer something I agree with."

"So long as you don't stop the match until one of us says to that's fine." Ranma said shaking his head. Glynda made to speak and he held up a hand. "I'm fine with most of what you teach the other two days, but this tournament rules crap, that doesn't teach them anything about how things go in the real world. Even if you're facing another human you fight until you can't fight anymore, not just until your aura's depleted."

Glynda frowned but nodded. "Very well, so long as you both agree to no killing blows after one or the others Aura has been depleted. And for that you'll both have to hook up your scrolls to the room's computer, agreed?"

"I'll agree to that." Ranma said. He handed over his scroll, and the two of them watched an image of Ranma appear on the large screen that dominated one wall of the arena. Next to his image appeared a bar of green, looking like the health bar in an RPG game.

But as they watched, the aura dipped quickly to zero than back to full, with the numbers 9999 appearing below it. Glynda blinked, looking from her control scroll to where Ranma's was stuck in the input device. "Could your scroll be broken?"

"Don't think so." Ranma shrugged his shoulders. He had sort of expected something like that, he wasn't certain where the cutoff between ki and aura was, but it was definitely a murky one, and given the gift Spring had given him... "Whatever, let's go."

"Hmm… still a very odd reaction, we might wish to look into it later." Glynda frowned for another few seconds at the image on the screen before shaking her shoulders and turning to her scroll again. All of the students had to input their scrolls into the control system every other week, which allowed them to speed through the various training faster. A second later Pyrrha's image appeared next to Ranma's with a similar health bar.

With that done, Ranma moved into the center of the arena staring up at Pyrrha. "Milady, may I have the honor of this dance?" he asked, bowing so floridly one of his hands brushed the floor.

Pyrrha stood up quickly then curtsied with a laugh. "Hehe, why sirrah, I would love to."

With that she flipped herself up and over the benches separating her from the arena, as well as the rest of team Juniper, landing easily on her feet, Milo out, Akuo in javelin mode cocked behind one ear. The flickering of battle light that had been in her eyes all day was now a furnace and a wide, dangerous smile on her face.

Yang saw that look nodded shaking her head. "Combat junkie," she murmured smirking a little. She looked over at Nora, and exchanged a high-five with the girl, while Ren groaned muttering about there being three of them now and Jaune patted him consolingly on the shoulder.

For a moment the two of them stood there, then began to circle one another, waiting.

Ruby had somehow or other hidden a box of cookies, and surprisingly hadn't eaten them all yet. She pulled them out from underneath the seat, chomping down on one as she stared avidly down into the arena. "This is like one of those old-time dramas, where the two rivals meet up for a final climactic battle!"

"It's barbaric for a professor to take on a student, but I suppose given Pyrrha's level of skill it makes more sense than it would otherwise." Weiss said rather haughtily. Then she went on, looking over at Yang, her haughty tones gone for a moment. "What are they waiting for?"

"They're sizing one another up Weiss cream," Yang murmured, leaning forward now, her eyes following each of the combatants as they circled around one another. She ignored Weiss' growl of indignation at her nickname, continuing her explanation. "In a battle between skilled opponents even a second of extra speed or initiative can make all the difference."

Ruby nodded her head rapidly, nudging her partner's shoulder. "Duh, why'd you think all those historical dramas show the two main characters staring each other down?"

"Ruby, for the last time, those movies are made up, they aren't real!" Yang muttered, but she didn't turn away from the arena.

"You don't know that!"

"No!" Nora shouted abruptly, causing Weiss and Jaune to squeak in shock and the others to jolt upright. Even the combatants who had been about to charge towards one another stopped and stared at her.

"Wait a second, this needs musical accompaniment." Nora held up her scroll, tapping rapidly at its screen before setting it down several yards away from where the rest of them were sitting. And almost as soon as she was back in her seat, a song began to blare out, and Ranma chuckled. It was the same song that he had sung when Pyrrha had explained that she liked to dance.

"Considering the way I invited you down here, that actually makes sense," Ranma mused, then grinned crouching low, hatchet low to the ground, shield in front of him as Pyrrha is did the same. For a moment they stood there again, staring at one another, waiting for one to blink. Then suddenly they both charged as one, hatchet meeting xiphos, hatchet meeting javelin, shield smashing into shield.

Ranma matched Pyrrha's speed and strength for now, the better to figure out her skill level. He almost immediately regretted it when one of his blows with his shield went slightly wide for some reason. This left him open for a split second and she hammered the bottom of her javelin into his chest, before pushing off quickly, springing into a roundhouse kick which his shield blocked. Using the momentum from that Pyrrha turned around the other way, Milo changing into its rifle mode which she fired near point-blank at him.

Despite there being a little less than a yard between them Ranma dodged the bullets, twisting his body this way and that using one hand to flip himself up and away, shooting out his mono-wire at the girl to grab her weapon and pull it off target. But the mono-wire actually missed its hold, Pyrrha moving the rifle just enough to dodge it.

Ranma frowned, then kicked off the ceiling to dart in again as Pyrrha leaped up to meet him midair. This was a mistake Ranma's ability to move and redirect her attacks in midair was simply incredible and she soon found herself flung aside, her head ringing from a kick to the side of her head.

It was all she could do to block Ranma's next few blows, helped by the fact that his attacks seemed to be off just slightly. Because of this oddity Pyrrha quickly regained the ground, getting some distance between them before charging in once more, determined not to make that mistake again.

The two of them met in the center of the arena trading blow for blow as they leaped and dodged in a far more mobile version of the battle Ranma had with Yang in Hei days. But Ranma had noticed that one or two of his blows were redirected. Not a lot, but slightly. Not enough for most to notice, but Ranma did.

 _Could that be related to her Semblance? What is it, some kind of field Pyrrha generates that keeps me from hitting her? But how would that work?_ It took him a few more blows, but then Ranma realized that she couldn't redirect any of his kicks, she either had to dodge those, or block them without whatever it was coming into play.

 _Interesting, so it's definitely not a field, a line of sight thing, or a conscious telekinesis kind of thing. She could still be controlling my weapons I suppose._ Action following thought Ranma dropped his hatchet, going in for straight punch only to watch it again be deflected just slightly so that instead of smashing into Pyrrha's chest it clipper her shoulder. She used the momentum from that to turn her javelin coming up and around changing into its xiphos form almost slicing Ranma's side but his shield blocked that blow and he kicked off the ground to get some space.

This allowed Pyrrha to change her weapon once again into a rifle and take shots at him but he dodged the bullets easily, as he thought for a moment. _Okay, so it's not just my weapons. Let's try something else._ With that he hurled his shield forward, but Pyrrha hurled her own shield forward, the two shields clanging off one another edge to edge.

Akuo bounced up into the air, ricocheting off the high roof and coming down towards Ranma's position as she charged, whirling around her Milo into its javelin mode, but Ranma blocked or dodged her attacks, hammering out with the arm that had formerly been carrying his shield which she blocked with her javelin.

By this point Pyrrha knew that Ranma had figured out something about her ability, and she laughed aloud, thrilled beyond measure. "HAHAH!" the sound reverberated around the arena, drawing amused or shocked looks from her friends as they heard it over the background music and the continual sounds of battle.

Someone else might have felt disappointed, scared, or annoyed that their trick had been discovered so quickly. But Pyrrha had **always** wanted to face an opponent upon which her polarity based Semblance wouldn't work, ever since she had learned how to use it to such an effect. She had even fought a few of her opponents in the tournaments in Mistral without it. But none of those opponents had the skill Ranma had.

Dodging backwards, Ranma kicked her shield out of the air before she could grab it, using the momentum from that kick to flip himself up over a javelin thrust, grabbing the end of it with one hand, his other hand flashing out, too fast for her to dodge. It slammed into the side of her face, hurling her away.

Nibbling at one knuckle Weiss frowned. "That's the second blow he's landed on Pyrrha! That's amazing. I should have expected it, but she was so rarely even touched in the tournaments…"

"Meh, Ranma's full of surprises, trust me," Yang murmured, reaching over her sisters shoulder to grab a cookie, ignoring Ruby's shout of outrage.

Pyrrha had seen that coming however, turning with the blow she flipped herself backwards before landing on her feet and spinning like a top, her javelin on her shoulders and extending in then shortening into its xiphos mode as Ranma dodged that attack, pressing Ranma hard for a second until she grabbed his own shield out of the air from where it had rebounded off two of the walls before coming back towards them, slamming it into his chest.

Or attempting to anyway. But Ranma simply put his hands between his chest and shield pushing off as her blow landed towards again get some distance this time straight up. "Nice try Big Red!"

Pyrrha's Milo turned into a rifle again and she began to fire up at him but Ranma used his mono-wire for a moment to grab a portion of the ceiling pulling himself out of the way of the stream of rifle fire before disengaging the wrist guard entirely, letting the mono-wire pull it in without him dropping down to the ground of the arena. Landing he charged forward, even as their onlookers shouted in shock for again dropping a weapon.

He winked at Pyrrha, even as his hands flashed out, redirecting or blocking her attacks, smirking a little at the slightly younger girl. "I'm done giving you a handicap Pyrrha!"

Pyrrha answered in the same low tones, their voices completely covered by the sounds of fist banging against javelin or shield and the occasional boom sound as Ranma's fists moved into Amiguriken speed. "You figured out my Semblance so quickly! Truly you deserve your fame Warden."

"Oh don't you start with that!" Ranma laughed, a sound that did carry over the sound of their weapons, matched by her own laugh the second later. "So do you think we're done feeling one another out now?"

"Undoubtedly!" Pyrrha said, still laughing then her laughter stopped and she pressed in quickly, moving faster and stronger than she had before.

Ranma matched her, the two of them going nose to nose for a moment, javelin, shield and xiphos against fists and feet, moving around the arena in a masterly display of acrobatics, their limbs moving so fast they almost disappeared to a few of the onlookers. One would press forward, the other one would match, leaping dodging kicking out. Pyrrha was more ground-based but even she could take to the air, and she too was incredibly good at using the momentum of his attacks. But Ranma was faster and stronger, his blows punishing even if redirected.

One of Pyrrha's attacks got in, cutting Ranma's arm near his shoulder, blood splattering away from the slash, and she paused for a moment, before Ranma nearly kicked in her chest plate, hurling her backwards. Ranma looked at his shoulder, which even as they all watched began to heal.

"Is that your Semblance?" Pyrrha asked, taking a moment to rub her chest , something that Ranma looked away from blushing slightly.

"Nah, that's something else, I guess you could call it Aura related. Maybe eventually I'll be able to teach you lot how to do it," Ranma said shrugging his arm a little before smirking. "You good to continue?"

"Of course!?" Pyrrha said with a laugh, then was forced to push off quickly backwards, using her shield to smash one of Ranma's blows to the side, whirling around him to bring Milo up in xiphos mode to try and cut into his side, before flinging her head backwards to dodge an uppercut.

Now it was Ranma's turn to be on the offensive and despite her speed and skill, despite her ability to use the momentum of his attacks to her own advantage, some of those blows, now almost all at Amiguriken speed, got through. Yet for every blow that landed, Pyrrha's smile widened, her joy in this battle growing. She had never been pushed this far before, never! And she **loved** every second of it!

To one side Glynda watched frowning as she watched Pyrrha's aura level go down with every blow. A normal freshman would've already been knocked out several times over, but Pyrrha had decently large reserves. Nowhere near Jaune's level, but somewhat even with Yang's without Xiao-Long's Semblance-given ability to refill it.

 _I was right; Pyrrha's skill level is well beyond any of her fellows. The only ones that could give her a fight one-on-one would-be Ruby or Yang, even the rest of her own teammates have weaknesses she could exploit, and I don't think either of them could actually beat her. So on the one hand this is good but I can tell this is slowly getting out of hand…_

None of the watchers or combatants noticed that a few of the students from the class had come back in during this last exchange, wanting to use the room for themselves. Those students paused in the entryway, staring before quickly moving to the seats, pulling up their scrolls and beginning to record the battle going on.

Ranma ducked underneath a slash from Pyrrha's xiphos, rolling as she reversed her grip on it to stab downwards. Her response was so quick the xiphos' edge caught him in the side, slicing open his shirt and side slightly. Even as he dodged that Ranma's foot lashed out, catching Pyrrha right below her knee, throwing off her balance just enough for him to flip into a spinning kick that caught her in the chin, hurling her up and away.

Grimacing in pain Pyrrha used the momentum of that to further flip in the air, firing several bullets at Ranma that hit his back and shoulder before he could set himself. Landing a distance away from her opponent Pyrrha shook her head groggily. Automatically she took a second to stare up at the screen that was still displaying their auras. Ranma's was stil jumping from zero to full, but her's was down to a bare sliver.

For just a moment Pyrrha heard her manager's voice: ' _Throw in the towel, you can't get injured! If you concede, well he's a teacher at Beacon, they're supposed to be the best, your record will be unscathed, it wasn't an official match. You have a duty to Mistral, you need to be the best, to show that you're the best, the_ _ **Untouchable**_ _Girl! You can't afford an injury!'_

But fighting that was all the rest of Pyrrha, her warrior soul, given a magnificent battle the likes of which she had never faced before. She saw the look in Glynda's eyes, then up at her friends. All of them were shouting encouragement, but they too, for the most part, looked as if they were trying to say the same thing Glynda's expression did: it was alright to give up now, she had nothing to prove here. Best not to get injured after all.

Then she looked at Ranma's eyes. His expression looked oddly disappointed, as if he was saying: 'are you going to give up? Is that it?'

Seeing that, Pyrrha's warrior blood boiled over. "Gamóto óti! (Fuck That!)" She shouted then charged, throwing her body into the attack again and again, with Ranma increasingly smashing her blows aside his own endurance almost untouched by the battle so far. She cut him several times, including one along the cheek from the neck up to one ear just barely missing his ear and again blood began to flow from that wound. But she took by far the worst of it, her armor actually beginning to buckle and bend underneath his return blows.

A kick caught her in the stomach, hurling her, backwards. Pyrrha had a second to look up before Ranma had cupped his hands together, pushing them out towards him. "Moko Takabasha!"

The bright cerulean sphere of energy shot out towards her but Pyrrha shouted in fury, taking it on her shield. The ki blast dissipated on Akuo's face, throwing Pyrrha in a circle which she used to twist around, hurling Milo forward in javelin mode. Ranma dodged to one side, only to have to leap over Akuo being hurled at him. Then Pyrrha was in his face, having caught Milo as it bounced off the floor, whirling in and slashing at him again.

"Oh, my god." Ruby muttered, her eyes wide. "What, what was that, it looked like a plasma attack, but it came from his hands. IS Ranma secretly a robot?"

"Don't know he didn't use that against me I can tell you." Yang said, stealing another cookie. "Could have been because he was worried about damaging the bar though. And no way is he a robot, trust me." She finished dryly.

"Pyrrha seems to have dealt with it well enough but I wonder; it looked almost like Aura given physical form rather than a Semblance. It could be his Semblance that allows him to mold it of course, but if he can teach others how to do that I think I might need to join you in your morning exercises Yang." Ren murmured, with Jaune nodding agreement. With his massive reserves he could possibly shoot out attacks like that all day, and he wouldn't have nearly as much trouble as Ren did getting up in the morning either.

While Nora was shouting encouragement for her teammate Blake and Weiss were silent, both of them watching intently, Weiss having nibbled her nails down to their nubs in worry, while Blake was rapidly coming to realize Ranma really was just as dangerous as she had thought at first regardless of his response to her being near him. _Still wonder what that's about though._

For her part Glynda was now scowling angrily. Whatever Ranma did to heal himself he wasn't using it now, and both he and Pyrrha were getting battered. _I should stop this, but both of them clearly wish to continue, and Ranma did ask me not to stop the match until one of them wishes me to. And it really is important to push yourself physically like this._

For five more minutes the two of them continued, dancing around one another, trading blow for blow, dodging ducking, twisting. Twice more Ranma went for a ki attack, only for Pyrrha to dodge one and block another with his own shield, having grabbed it up from the ground. In reply Ranma took a few blows to his chest or legs. Pyrrha's punches or kicks did nothing to him save an elbow blow that caught his nose, nearly breaking it, but her weapons left several painful cuts on his skin. In return however Pyrrha was being pounded to pieces. But she kept on, pushing her body harder and harder.

She was still attacking when a blow got through her defense smashing into her eye and cheekbone with enough force to knock her out. Pyrrha fell sideways unconscious, only to be caught by Ranma, who held her against him lightly for a moment his own chest heaving. That last burst of Pyrrha's had pushed even him. While he had held back on his speed, not using Amiguriken attacks to their full potential, and had never used his ki attacks close in or, Amaterasu-forbid, the skills Spring had taught him, that was still the toughest fight he'd had since arriving in this world.

He looked up to team Ruby and team Juniper, raising a hand to wipe away the blood from his chin and over one eye for a moment. "One of you girls want to take Pyrrha to the showers? I don't think she's too badly hurt, but you might need to pry her out of her armor."

Nora and Yang exchanged a glance then both of them jumped forward, landing easily in the arena. "That was **awesome!** " Nora exclaimed. "Way cool!"

Yang nodded too, smirking at Ranma. "When am I going to get rematch blue boy?"

"Heh, some other time maybe, like at the end of the semester?" Ranma chuckled, waving them both off. as Ruby and the others moved forward.

Ruby in particular was enthusiastic about what she'd just seen. "Wow, that was so darn cool! You were like all Wchhaaa, and whoosh and she was all Hyaah and slash!" She shouted, her hands moving this way and that as she tried to describe what she had seen.

"It was most enlightening," Ren nodded. "I don't suppose you'll be teaching anyone that Aura-based attack?"

"Eventually maybe." Ranma said with a shrug, looking at Ren from where he had been rubbing Ruby's head affectionately. "Ya'll need to build up your Auras a bit more I suppose, and do some meditation so ya have an image of the attack."

"It was interesting," Blake said, watching with her lips twitching slightly as Ranma flinched, backing away slightly from her and almost putting Ruby between them. "But why did you throw away your weapons like that, none of us could figure out a reason for that."

"Heh, well that's a secret Ms. Belladonna." Ranma smirked, holding a finger to his lips.

"Ahem, as interesting as this has been children, I think you all should head over to the cafeteria, your friends will meet you there." As the teens all whined and mumbled before agreeing with her, Glynda brought up a finger to tap Ranma's chin lightly on the side which didn't have a cut on it. "That didn't heal? Were you that close to your aura reserves giving out?"

"Maybe, I wasn't close to exhaustion physically, but my ki was definitely running out. Whatever the edge on that weapon is it cut into my skin despite my toughness training. I might have to step that up. Besides," he said smiling slightly and touching the cut in question, which followed his jaw bone slightly before moving up onto his cheek. "I thing I'm going to keep this to remind me not to get overconfident."

"Hmm, I suppose that makes sense, I know I have a similar scar, as do most professional Hunters." Glynda nodded then moved over with Ranma towards the door, following the students, glad that he and Pyrrha hadn't done much damage to her classroom.

 **OOOOOOO**

In his office Ozpin turned from watching the match via cameras set into each corner of the arena, frowning thoughtfully. "Interesting, that gives me a decent idea of Ranma's skills, but I had hoped… nevermind, it's obvious Ms. Nikos wasn't enough to pressure him that far."

He sighed sadly, noting the watchers that Glynda and the others had missed. "That is going to be an issue in the future, but we shall see."

 **OOOOOOO**

The tanks of team Ruby and Juniper carried Pyrrha into the women's locker room, laying her out on one of the benches before slowly removing her armor. It was slow going because more than once they actually had to bend the armor back into shape before pulling it off her, and Yang winced at the bruises covering Pyrrha's upper body and one of her legs. "Geez, Ranma really didn't go easy on you did he?" She didn't remember her own body looking like this, but then again she had lost consciousness almost immediately after her aura reserves had failed.

Nora frowned slightly, now able to look past the awesome battle to what it had done to her teammate. "Jeez, I didn't realize she'd be so battered. Do you think she'll regret continuing on after her aura depleted?"

"Nah. You saw her smile, she was loving it! You think she's a masochist?"

That question came out jokingly, but Nora shook her head seriously staring at Yang. "You know precisely what she is".

"Yep a combat junkie. From one adrenaline junkie to another, it's easy to see the signs."

Despite their manhandling hard Pyrrha didn't wake up until Yang had actually helped her into the shower, the hot water cascading down her bare body. She leaned against the corner of the shower directly underneath the showerhead, letting it fall into her hair and down, not turning her head away as she addressed Yang. "Yang?"

"Yeah Red?"

"I am really happy right now!" Now Pyrrha turned her head to look at Yang, showing her a wide, happy smile, almost a grin.

"Besides getting your fix?" Yang asked, moving over to shampoo the other girl's hair. _Man, if I was the sort to be body conscious this'd make me jealous._ Even with her body covered with bruises Pyrrha was the picture of statuesque beauty. She didn't have as much up top as Yang, but she was a very perky high B there, and her legs were amazing as was her rear.

When Nora joined them she began to move Pyrrha this way and that letting Yang clean her, Pyrrha unable to stand up on her own just yet. "No, well there is a bit of that there suppose. But the main reason? I'm no longer the Invincible Girl!"

Yang paused in her work, cocking her head thoughtfully as Nora continued to move Pyrrha this way and that, like she was a life-size doll. " I thought you were proud of that, even if you hated how people treated you because of your fame."

"I loathe the fame! I loathe it so much you can't imagine!" Pyrrha growled, shaking her head but moving dutifully when the Yang began to turn her head to rinse the shampoo out of her hair. "Did you know that before I came here, the last friend I had was when I was seven? All of my friends distanced themselves from me when I became famous, thinking it had gone to my head or I had changed or some such dung!"

"And I couldn't make new ones. Sycophants I had in plenty, hangers on, people who wanted to be seen with the Invincible Girl! But no true friends before I came here to Vale, no one who saw Pyrrha first and the Invincible Girl second. Before I met you, Ranma and Ruby that evening I should say, and it's gotten even better since we came to Beacon. The Goddess of Victory they've called me. All I wanted was to be known as a human, to be able to relate to people normally."

"I don't think you're ever going to be quite normal Red." Yang laughed. "But I understand the sentiment."

"Heh, don't worry Pyrrha, we'll never treat you as anything more than the anti-morning person you are!" Nora chimed in, causing Pyrrha to growl lightly while the other two girls laughed and continued to help her clean up.

 **End chapter**

* * *

This chapter was more about settling in than interaction or combat, but there were a few plot points going forward. I don't intend for the story to get bogged down by classes except for Ranma's in the future. I'll use his to introduce more Grimm and world-lore, while the plot continues apace and I play with everyone's interactions more. Hope everyone enjoyed this, and remember the poll should be up by this point, so go and vote for next month.

Oh and If anyone has any knowledge of Greek or Chinese songs and foods, specifically chocolate based for the Greek, I'd like to hear about them.

As always, thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**I don't own Ranma 1/2 or RWBY**. **Don't have that kind of artistic skills**.

Needless to say this work won the November poll. I'm sorry for having missed the end of the month, but some sections of this chapter gave me a lot of trouble, and it isn't the chapter I had thought. But i think its still fun so hope you all do too. This chapter however has not been edited by Ultimaflare09, so I don't doubt you'll see more mistake than usual.

The poll for December is up now too, so check it out.

While several people have worried how easily Pyrrha seemed to push him, other reviewers mentioned how Ranma seems to be too good at times, as if he's unbeatable. Let me say that is false right now, but that I do not intend for one on one fights or even the human enemies out there to be the main opponents in the series. I also detest the whole tournament concept, and not just because of how obvious a setup it was from a viewer's perspective. As to Pyrrha having pushed him, you'll find out why in this chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 7: Evaluations of All Sorts**

As the other students and professor Goodwitch filed out of the room Beni turned to Ranma, one sardonic eyebrow raised in query. **"** So how much did you hold back, and why? I know your style Ranma, and you weren't hitting Pyrrha nearly as hard as you could. And don't get me started on your speed. I know you routinely play down to your enemy's level but I'm just wondering why you did that in this case and how much you had to. Ms. Nikos is after all a known champion."

I only held back a bit of my style, my speed and strength. Along with some of my real high end martial arts stuff. **"** Ranma shrugged. **"** As to why I held back, we're supposed to be teachers, how are we supposed to teach people if we keep on beating them and the ground? They're not those monkey guys from that manga who got stronger every time they came near death. You need to show your students that there's a lot they can still learn, while also showing them how much they've already, or else you'll discourage them."

"That sounded surprisingly intelligent and well-reasoned," Beni replied with a nod. _If only I could tell whether or not that was actually a intellectual response on your part Ranma, or a learned response from always fighting down to his opponent's level._ That kind of thing could get him killed though admittedly on this planet the Grimmm are much more of a threat than humans in our line of work anyway.

"Ouch," Ranma groaned, holding his chest dramatically. That he sobered slightly. **"** But don't knock Pyrra's abilities just because I held back. Pyrrha was incredible, I'd say she's at least a junior level in terms of combat, maybe a senior. Her endurance is pretty damn good, not only exertion wise, but in the amount of punishment she can take both with her aura and without. I didn't hold back nearly as much as I expected to because she also knows a little mental trick I actually didn't think I'd run into again."

"A little trick?"

Ranma smirked shaking his head. **"** You didn't notice when she suddenly began to go faster to match me?"

Beni closed her eyes for a moment replaying the battle then frowned. **"** That **was** rather sudden, I just simply assumed she stopped holding back as she normally did just like you."

"Nope," Ranma shook his head. **"** That was a high-end meditation technique where you put your body into a sort of state of mind where you ignore its warnings that you're pushing it too hard. It's like sprinters or long-distance cross-country skiers, only at an even higher level. But boy will she pay for it tomorrow." Ranma laughed quietly. **"** Still like I said Pyrrha's incredible. She's adaptable which is the main thing, and very fluid, very mobile in her form, which makes her a better match for me then Yang was in our initial meeting."

Ranma rubbed a finger across the scar on his cheek gently. **"** That plus whatever the edge of her blade is made of almost literally ignored my strengthening technique. Not quite of course, but enough to leave a mark and force me to use my ki to heal and reinforce my skin."

"And your ki reserves?" Beni asked skeptically. You might not know this Ranma, but I can sense your aura just as well as you can, possibly even a little better."

"Yeah there I just flat out lied." Ranma shrugged. "Like I said, I did want to discourage the kids. Besides," he smirked evilly, "How much ya wanna bet some punks are going to try to take me on if they think I'm not all that after having to struggle with the freshmen?"

"You want them to… what am I saying, of course you want them to, it'll give you a chance to beat them down and have fun doing it without getting in trouble with the rest of the teachers. That's so you, it's almost predictable." Beni groaned.

 **OOOOOOO**

"Interesting," Ozpin muttered thoughtfully, turning away once again from the video of the arena. He had been about to walk away when the audio pickups started to overhear Ranma and Beni's talk and had stayed to listen. "Ranma is most definitely an excellent addition to their school, though I think I will refrain from sharing that bit about him baiting the older students to take him on from Glynda. She would not approve." _And it will give me even more examples of his skill to evaluate of course._

 **OOOOOOO**

As Ranma had predicted, his match with Pyrrha had indeed garnered some reactions from the students.

"So much for the invincible girl, guess she couldn't take on the Azure Warden."

"I don't know man, I don't know if the Azure Warden's all that either. He seemed to struggle with her a lot."

"And she is just a freshman," chimed in another junior, smirking unpleasantly. **"** Makes you wonder, right?"

"Maybe," cautioned another one. **"** The freshmen have been raving about his class.

"But just because he knows about how to live off the land or whatever doesn't mean he's a good fighter. Think about it, he's not teaching **us** is he?"

"Yeah, but there are those rumors about him during the Fall of Semaphore."

"Rumors. **"** Another scoffed.

"Hey it could be the other way, maybe Nikos really is that good. She is, or she was anyway, known as the Invincible Girl."

"That's over in dinky little Mistral. This is the big league. This… Is… Beacon!"

"…Dude, you been watching way too many movies."

 **OOOOOOO**

Sitting on her bed in team CVFY's room, Cocoa clicked the pause button as they watched the cerulean sphere of power slam into Pyrrha's shield. "Thoughts?"

"A few of the oldest texts in my monastery told of such attacks. They were the precursor to Semblance-based powers, before people began to realize Semblance's even existed in fact, a pure aura assault, though the texts didn't use the word aura back then. It might still be learnable, so long as the learner has tremendous control over his or her Aura but I would not like to wager a bet on that." Yatsuhashi replied, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"Duly noted," Coco said dryly shaking her head. **"** Besides, I think me and our precious bunny here have the long-range aspect of our team covered for now. What I meant was about the rest of the fight."

Fox shrugged his shoulders. Since he was blind he couldn't tell anything from recordings like this. It would have been different if he had been that had been able to use his powers to watch the fight live of course. But even with Cocoa and the others doing giving him a running play-by-play he still missed a lot. However, he had thought of one thing. **"** Pyrrha's good," he grunted.

"Definitely." Velvet said nodding her head. As one of the True Hunter teams (a label that was used rather often but in no way official), Velvet despite being mild-mannered and rather quiet in social settings, had earned her place on the team with her combat skills and analytical mind. **"** I don't think any of us could be her one on one. **"** She's too fast, too adaptable, heavens even in hand-to-hand she could hold her own against Ranma, and I think he's head and shoulders better than most of the other teachers here in that area."

"He held back too," Yatsuhashi said quibbling slightly at that. **"** At least when it came to speed, I could tell that, not certain about strength."

"You're missing the point my giant friend." Coco said, patting Yatsuhashi on the knee. **"** Velvet wasn't commenting on Ranma, she was commenting on Pyrrha. What kind of training did she go through to get that good?"

Here Fox spoke again, gesturing slightly, as if he had gauntlets on his fist looking at Yatsuhashi. **"** Yang?"

He nodded slowly. **"** Yang is quite exceptional too, certainly a sophomore level, maybe even Junior."

Coco nodded, cocking her head thoughtfully. "I'm thinking that no junior could beat her one on one except maybe Fox. What about the seniors?"

"Team-wise I've no doubt they've got a long way to go." Velvet quibbled, but then sighed as Coco pushed down her glasses lightly to glare over the top of then at Velvet. **"** In terms of one-on-one however, I think only Brutus could beat her. **"**

Brutus was **the** powerhouse of the senior class. Almost as tall as the headmaster and built along similar lines he had a Semblance that allowed him to take practically anything almost but not in the same manner as professor Port. He routinely took point for his team while they did the damage, though he was also the only student on campus that Coco knew for a fact was a better hand-to-hand combatant than Fox and Yatsuhashi, possibly even combined. He had routinely sparred with both of them last year, though this year Brutus wasn't going to be around that much thanks to senior teams always being out on various missions.

There were rumors Yang had something similar in terms of a Semblance, though no one knew the truth behind them just yet. Semblances were after all something private. You didn't have to share them if you didn't want to.

"But like I said in terms of teams, I think our team could beat any of the freshmen's easily, and don't get me started on Charlotte or Brutus's." Velvet actually shuddered a little as she finished.

Last year Coco had gotten somewhat overconfident and rather arrogant near the end of the first term. To beat it out of her Glynda had put CVFY against Charlotte and her team, CRSH, in a team match.

Charlotte was a very nice young lady who had been born on a small Island off the coast of Atlas. Because of this Charlotte had a distinct, some men even said sexy, accent to go with her short blonde hair and angelic face. She was kind, gentle and almost as self-effacing socially as Velvet, and was generally thought of as being far too cute to be a Hunter.

She used double-barreled machine guns backed up by an electro-pole. Charlotte also had a tactical and strategic mind like a computer and three teammates who she meshed with into an offensive powerhouse which covered all of their natural weaknesses. Team CVFY had been schooled horribly in their match against them.

In terms of the curricula, teamwork was a major point of emphasis in the next few years for the freshmen and sophomore classes, plus criminal law, history and weapons construction, plus practical classes on how to maintain said weapons out in the field. Beacon was of the firm opinion that no matter how strong a single Hunter could be, a team would always be stronger and more importantly, able to survive in the field where a single Hunter would not. Thus you had to pass certain team-based exercises to be allowed to take fieldwork.

Fox however was frowning thoughtfully, ignoring the other three for a moment then he looked over at Yatsuhashi thoughtfully, addressing something he had said moments before. **"** Held back?"

"Yes, I'm certain he did, and enough to make me think it was deliberate above and beyond not wanting to discourage the freshmen by rubbing his own superiority in their faces." Yatsuhashi said simply. "I have to wonder if he had any other reasons."

Coco laughed evilly. **"** How much would you want to bet some blowhard challenges the new teacher because they think he's not all that? If they did, he won't have any reason hold back against them."

She stood up, stretching her head and neck. "I'd love to talk to him, see if he's actually trying to bait the morons. But for now, I've got an errand I need to see to."

Velvet looked up quickly, not liking Coco's tone there. **"** What are you up to Coco?" she asked cautiously.

"Don't worry your fluffy bunny head about it love." Coco said calmly, reaching over to stroke a finger down Velvet's long ear, which caused the Faunus to blush and twitch away as it always did. No matter how many times Coco did that, she still got a reaction even though Velvet knew the reaction was why Coco did it in the first place.

With that Coco left the room, closing the door behind her before moving down the corridor swinging her bag in a manner that made everyone who knew her back away rapidly. The message she was going to send 'was don't mess with my team'.

It didn't matter that Velvet had volunteered. It didn't matter that Beni had been there to stop things if they got out of line. It didn't even matter that the test had in fact succeeded as Beni had hoped it would, or that Velvet could easily handle his entire team by herself.

No, this ass-hat Cardin had picked on Velvet, Coco's teammate and best friend. Some things just could not stand regardless of the circumstances. So she was going to put the fear of Coco (like the fear of god only closer and with more smiting) into all four of the would-be bullies.

 **OOOOOOO**

After helping Nora put Pyrrha into bed, Yang joined her teammates for dinner, throughout which all of them could hear the rumors going around the cafeteria, but none of them joined in. While Yang was the only one who knew for a fact that Ranma had held back, they also knew that Pyrrha was not exactly a normal freshie, so anyone who challenged either her or Ranma were probably going to get their asses kicked.

Ruby of course was still energetically going over the fight and to Yang's surprise Weiss also seemed interested too. The Atlasian native spent time taking apart the various tactics both of fighter had shown, as well as how their team could combat them, coming up with several partner-based tactics with Ruby's enthusiastic help.

Blake wasn't interested in that discussion or listening to the rumors around them, she was simply reading a book as usual. She did however look up as Yang snorted, having just overheard a group of older students, seniors from their apparent age, wonder if Ranma wasn't all that to be pushed so hard by a freshman. She caught Yang's violet eyes with her own yellow ones and the two smirked before going back to their food and book respectively. _Yeah, right!_

Later in their dorm room, while Weiss was in the bathroom and Ruby had gone off to pester the Forge Master, Yang decided to ask your partner something that had been bothering her. **"** Have you noticed how Ranma's so leery around you?"

"I have," Blake said, looking up from her book before looking back down. **"** Your guess is as good as mine as to why though. **"** At first, Blake thought it was a Faunus issue, but Ranma didn't seem to have any trouble with the other Faunus students, so Blake was forced to assume it was something else. She didn't know what that could be however.

"Really?" Yang smirked. **"** So you never met him before? You're not the dark mysterious maiden in his past or anything like that?"

"Just because he hasn't responded to your obvious flirtations as you'd hoped doesn't mean you can make up fictional pasts for me." Blake replied firmly **, t** hough her lips twitched slightly as she did. **"** Maybe he just doesn't like blondes." She paused. "Or bimbos, either or."

"Every boy likes blondes, it's part of their genetic DNA babe. As for the bimbo part, my grades might not be that great, but they're not bad either, don't stereotype. No, it's just a matter of time before he succumbs to my wiles. After all, what man could resist this?" Yang asked gesturing with both hands down her body as she stood up posing dramatically.

Blake tracked the movement with her eyes over her book, shaking her head. Yang did have a very nice body and a very in your face style but she wasn't certain if Ranma was the type to like that kind of thing. Some things about how he acted hinted at it, others hinted at the exact opposite. Her eyes swept back up to Yang's face when Yang went on. **"** On the other hand, I suppose I would have to step up my game to beat you if he's a booty boy."

"Do I even want to know why?" Blake asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Oh please like you don't know! The only girl on campus with a better rear that you is Velvet, and she's got a natural advantage. You can't say you don't deliberately shake your Bellabooty whenever you walk."

"Bellabooty?" Blake asked, drawling the word. "Is thatthe best you could come up with?" Even so Blake was having trouble keeping a blush off her face. It wasn't her fault she walked like that, it was genetics! "And should I be worried that you're still checking me out?"

"Take it as a compliment babe." Yang said with a wink. **"** Besides, I think you'd be more open to that kind of thing given some of the stuff in those Ninjas of Love books you read. You might've thought you were clever hiding them behind the other books like that, but the mighty Yang sees all and knows all."

"Except possibly the meaning of the word 'tact' or 'personal property'," Blake shot back flushing slightly, but refusing to let Yang get more of a rise out of her which she knew now had suddenly become the point of this exchange. Well if the girl wanted to play that as fine by her.

"You know," she said thoughtfully, deciding to go on the offensive. "You said you were all about the thrill when we first met, and you do seem to give off this bad girl vibe. Tell me are you waiting for the right policeman come along, complete with handcuffs?"

"Nah I'm more of a chains kind of girl, and I'm definitely more on the giving part than the receiving." Yang replied, not even blushing much to Blake's chagrin. **"** Though it's interesting how quickly you came up with that, you have any fantasies in that direction as well, or… **'gasp'** " Yang raised her hands to her cheeks dramatically. "Is that why you think I won't get Ranma's attention, because you're going to go for him!?"

"Oh please." Blake rolled her eyes. "I've told you before, he's not my type. I look for more than a pretty face and a sexy body." She held up a hand. "And yes, I freely admit he's got a sexy body, especially when he moves. But I haven't talked to him as you apparently have, and I'm not a martial artist nut like you are."

"Hmm, true…" Realizing she wasn't going to get anywhere with that line of attack, Yang smirked. "But you didn't answer my first question, so… heh, does Blakey want to be tied up for some fun?"

"No I don't think so." Blake mused even as she wondered why she had so much fun trading barbs like this. _I guess it calls out to the playful cat in me._

"I suppose it would depend on my mood. But with your Semblance, I have to wonder if you're projecting a bit there." Blake said blandly, still not rising to Yang attempts at getting a visual response out of her, smirking only slightly. "It certainly would lend itself to a bit of masochistic play wouldn't it?"

"Alright that's enough." Weiss barked from where she had just exited the bathroom, or rather where she had been standing for some time though the BY of team RWBY hadn't noticed. She had paused there, her face flushed as Yang and Blake's back-and-forth continued until she could finally take no more. **"** Ruby is going to be back in a moment Yang, do you really want her to hear all this!"

Yang paused, exchanging a glance with Blake. **"** We'll continue this later, while I do sometimes enjoy breaking my little sister's mind, I suppose it is getting late."

Blake smirked at her, now letting her face actually show some more emotion as she languidly stretched. **"** So does that mean I win this round?"

"You wish Blakey!" Yang laughed, pushing her shoulder lightly before Blake could get out of range, then ducking down into her own bed. Above herBlake chuckled, shaking her head as she turned on the small night light to allow her to read. As a cat Faunus of course she could read in the dark, but it was still better to read with the light on and after all she was trying to keep her heritage secret.

A few moments later Ruby came in, heading straight into the bathroom. As she went Yang noticed that her hands and face were covered with oil and her eyes shown in the way they always did when she had been working with weapons. The older sister sighed faintly, wondering if maybe she should take a more proactive stance on getting Ruby to branch out from her weapons fetish, before shaking her head, deciding to think about that later.

With that Yang leaned back in her bed, pulling the covers up as she frowned, a serious expression on her face despite her recent round of fun with Blake. While everyone else had watched the fight from the side of simply watching it as an expression of combat prowess, Yang had seen something more. _Dammit, Pyrrha and Ranma really are compatible in a lot of ways. I thought I had a head start given how alike he and I are, but Pyrrha also shares a lot of the same traits. She isn't as outgoing as he and I are, nor as in-your face confident, but they like some of the same things, and I think their pasts are somewhat similar to. I don't think Pyrrha herself realizes it, but I can also tell she's attracted to him. I might really have some competition here._

 _So how do I step up my game without scaring him off? I'm really interested in him, I mean he's almost the full package, if only he'd flirt back like a normal guy would._ A _nd I don't want to put my friendship with Pyrrha in jeopardy, I don't have so many real friends I'm going to let one of them die off like that._ Yang chuckled, eliciting a inquisitive noise from her sister who had just come in from the bathroom after one of her patented speed showers. She waved her sister off, still chuckling as she watched Ruby turn off the lights. _But I think I know at least part of how Pyrrha was able to keep up with Ranma in that fight, boy is she going to be sore tomorrow!_

 **OOOOOOO**

The video of Ranma and Pyrrha's fight had become an online sensation in the days since, so it was no wonder, given their interest in Ranma, that a few of his criminal associates also showed interest in it.

"Impressive," Roman murmured watching as the fight came to an end. **"** He is good, very good but you can tell he's holding back. He moved a lot faster than that when he was fighting you my dear for one thing, and he didn't seem to anticipate her attacks as he could with you."

Next to him his petite sociopathic partner nodded, digging out the last of the ice cream from a tub of it. Looking at the ice cream Roman manfully held back a smirk. Just as a point of interest he had followed Neo once on an ice cream run, and had come away in awe of her acting abilities as well as the versatility of her Semblance. And an idea to invest in any local ice cream distribution companies, given how neo ate the stuff she was going to make them a fortune.

The master thief came back to the here and now as Neo held up a scroll for him to read. 'Ranma's also fought me a few other times when you weren't around. I'd challenge him, and he'd just duck and dodge until I got tired or he offered me ice cream to get me to go away.'

"Which of course would have been at least half of the point of your attacking him in the first place." Roman replied drolly. "I'm just glad our various victims never learned of your addiction. All they would have had to do would be to toss a bowl of ice cream at you and escape while you devoured the poor thing."

Neo rolled her eyes, her other hand gesturing violently with her spoon as if stabbing someone, smirking then licking it clean only to make the motion for scooping up some more ice cream after. That was her way of saying she'd just kill them then eat their ice cream anyway. "Good to know my dear."

Again Neo gestured to her scroll and Roman read the next line she had written out on it. 'That aura attack was new.'

"True, but a connoisseur of the arts always holds something back," Roman said grandly, lighting up his cigar at the same time. **"** You should always have a trump card in your hand."He glanced at Neo, who nodded understanding what he was really saying there. She seemed to debate something in her mind, then nodded her head, holding up her hand holding some cards in it, before reaching out with her other, hovering it over the center of the small table they were sitting around, cocking her eyebrow quizzically at Roman. "Ah, that indeed is the question isn't it?"

"What are you watching?" said a feminine voice behind them, and both criminals turned quickly.

"Cinder!" Roman bowed grandly, doffing his hat as he did so. **"** I'm sooo sorry, we would've greeted you when you arrived, but we didn't hear the door." Beside him Neo seemed to shrink slightly in her seat as her heterochromatic eyes locked on Cinder.

"Enough of the brown nosing Roman," Cinder rejoined, holding her head with one hand and looking as if she had a migraine. She was also not nearly as immaculate as normal. A few of her hairs were askew from the normal black wave she wore it in going down her back, and while her red dress was pristine as usual her fingers were twitching where they were at her side and forehead.

"Are you all right?" Roman asked solicitously, while mentally going through the odds of a fight between him and Neo and Cinder right now. If she was feeling under the weather or had a migraine or something of that nature, it might give them an opening. Working with the woman was lucrative, but far too in the open for him, and the fact he hadn't had a choice to join Cinder still galled him.

After a moment however the calculation still came up as zero. Cinder knew about Neo's abilities as well as his own and frankly her offensive power was utterly terrifying.

Having already worked that out on her own Neo had already moved over to a medicine cabinet, pulling out a bottle of Motrin and holding it out. At thatCinder actually smiled at the girl. **"** It's not that issue, but I'll take the pills nonetheless."With that she turned, gulping down the pills without even looking at the glass of water that Nea and given her. **"** What were you watching?" She asked again, gesturing towards the TV.

"Oh it's just a video of the new teacher over at beacon in action against the Invincible Girl from Mistral. Some of the students uploaded the video to Rem-net, so it didn't cost us anything to look at it, and any information is valuable, right?"

"True." Cinder mused, moving forward to rewind the video. "I had heard about this new teacher, the so-called Azure Warden, and his exploits made me curious. Have your contacts found anything more than what is known about him from rumors?"

"Afraid not. It's certain he was a student at Semaphore, and there have been a lot of rumors about that battle, but nothing beyond that, nothing about his history or anything, except he is apparently the Song Summoner's brother." Roman of course wasn't going to share that he and Neo knew Ranma socially. If Cinder hadn't picked that up, that at least was a weakness they could exploit.

"I do not like random elements appearing out of the blue like this." Cinder scowled, a scowl which had nothing to do with the pounding of her head. "Nor is his joining the Beacon staff the only new element added into the equation of late. Have you heard anything about a major Hunter operation in the area?"

Roman and Neo looked at one another, but after a moment both shrugged. "Nothing like that. Oh, there was a rumor about some Bullhead pilots seeing what looked like the sight of a major fight out past the ruins of Mountain Glen, but that's all."

Cinder growled, her head pounding once more. That was indeed what she had been commenting on but it was evident neither of her pawns had any more information than she did. Pity, if she could have found something, then maybe Salem would have…

Her thoughts trailed off as the video began, and Cinder found herself actually smiling somewhat in appreciation at the sheer artistry shown by both fighters. Then her thoughts shuddered to a halt as the voice in her head suddenly focused once more. Her hand flew up to her head as the thoughts hit her like a warhammer to the cranium. " _ **It is him, him, the one who killed a Leo in Vacuo, he who killed the herd of Goliaths!"**_

With an effort of will few could have matched, Cinder thrust herself to her feet. "This video isn't enough to tell me what I need to know about this Azure Warden. It seems as if I will need to gather more information on this one. Continue with your work here in Vale Roman, I will speak to you again in two weeks." With that Cinder forced herself out of the room, covering her movements in a flash of blinding white fire to the senses of anyone foolish enough to follow her.

Neo and Roman of course were not so foolish, but if they had been that would have allowed her to throw them off her trail, after which Cinder crossed half of Vale before entering her safe house, a high rise apartment more in keeping with someone as rich as Weiss rather than a criminal mastermind. Entering via the apartment's balcony Cinder's strength barely held until she was in front of her bed, where she collapsed, slumping down onto it as she finally replied to her mistress's voice.

" _Salem, I was with my pawns, you know I cannot show weakness in front of them ,and you know what your voice can do to me even over this vast a distance!"_ Even as she sent that thought out Cinder raised a hand to her nose, feeling a small trickle of blood coming from it to stain her bedsheets.

" _ **I care not for your pawns my queen, I have all the faith in the world in your ability to control them, else you would not be my queen in the first place**_ _._ _ **Now tell me what you know of this warrior who uses blue Aura!"**_

Cinder did so, which alas didn't take nearly long enough to give her a break from her mistress's fury. Thankfully that fury was not directed at her. _"I think he must have been brought in to help guard the school after our attack on the Autumn Maiden. But where he learned his skills or the full extent of such I do not know. Nor how he or rather Ozpin could have figured out they needed to weaken the local Grimmm."_

" _ **Ozpin is clever, and very knowledgeable, though it is not like him to be so proactive."**_ The being Cinder called Salem mused, her voice still a thunder in her brain but less so now, the undertones of rage and hate once again under control. _**"Still, this move needs to be addressed**_ _._ _ **Without the Goliaths the odds of us breaking the defenses of Beacon and the city of Vale shrink**_ _._ _ **Worse, Ozpin could use this as the start of a culling of the Grimmm in the area**_ _._ _ **That cannot be allowed, and this action needs to be redressed in as violent a manner as possible."**_

" _What do you have in mind?"_

" _ **Nothing to concern yourself with my dear queen**_ _._ _ **No, I have pawns enough for this elsewhere**_ _._ _ **Indeed, I even have enough knights, bishops and even a few rooks to use, even lose, elsewhere and still not derail our overall goal**_ _._ _ **Humanity will learn that there is no hiding from fear, and strength alone will not be enough…"**_

 **OOOOOOO**

Yang and Ranma's prediction about how sore Pyrrha would be in the morning were spot on. Never a morning person usually, getting up that Saturday morning wasn't just hard, but painful and just impossible.

First there was the pain. Pyrrha felt as if all of her muscles and tendons felt as if someone had electrocuted them over the course of several hours. Her hands and legs spasmed occasionally too. Then of course were the actual bruises she had taken, and a migraine growing behind her eyes when she tried to open them. Pyrrha would have liked to put that down to Nora jumping around happily about it being morning, but she knew it wasn't, not this time anyway.

Then there was her total exhaustion and the feeling of weakness. While Pyrrha had occasionally pushed herself past her normal aura limit before, she had only pushed herself to near-physical collapse three times in her life. The exhaustion from her spar with Ranma dwarfed those times. And on top of her muscles simply being in pain, they seemed as weak as a kitten's.

"Pyrrha, I know you have trouble waking up, and I even know your bed routinely looks like you were wrestling with your covers. But this is the first time I think you might actually be losing." Jaune chuckled shaking his head. "Go for a choke hold!"

As Nora laughed and Ren shook his head, Pyrrha tried to turn her head to glare at Jaune only to fail. Even her neck muscles refused to obey her. During her match with Ranma Pyrrha had used a mental discipline she had been taught during her training in Mistral called 'Overdrive'. Ranma knew it by another name of course, but the effect was the same. The user used his mind to turn off his ability to register their body's pain centers, thus becoming able to push their body harder and faster than their muscles would otherwise be able to go.

"Come on sleepy head its morning we have to get going or the cafeteria might run out of pancakes and if they do I might have to go on a killing spree!" Nora shouted, bouncing in place. Since this wasn't the first time she had threatened such a thing her teammates didn't bat an eye, though other people might have been put off by the fact she was singing as she made that threat.

"Gaaaaa…." Pyrrha groaned. Her obvious distress mattered not at all to her orange-haired teammate, who continued to dance around her bed. Her normal controller was nowhere in sight, and Jaune was too busy laughing at Pyrrha's moment of weakness to be of much help.

"Pancakes wait for no woman Pyrrha I didn't raise you to be such a slacker!" Nora actually reached over and began to pull the blanket off Pyrrha, only stopped by the fact most of the blanket was wrapped around her body and legs. "Get moving willingly now or unwilling in a few seconds…" She caroled.

It was with dawning horror that Pyrrha realized she was indeed being pulled off her bed. _If Nora pulls me out of bed I might have to murder her._ Pyrrha thought, already anticipating the amount of pain even that light a blow would cause in her current state.

Her eyes rolled wildly in her head locking on Jaune who interpreted her wild, bloodshot glare correctly and stepped forward. "Pyrrha had a tough time yesterday Nora, so letting her sleep in is probably for the best. Not everyone can bounce back from a fight like you can after all."

This argument didn't seem to be getting through but then Jaune had a brainstorm worthy of any true Nora wrangler. "Besides, without Pyrrha there that means you can eat her share of the pancakes." Pyrrha actually didn't eat pancakes, they were far too sweet for her taste not to mention fattening. She usually had toasted cinnamon and raisin bread or fruit and muesli in the morning but Nora of course didn't realize this. Instead she shouted about needing to get there before someone else got to it before racing off.

Pyrrha's look of near murderous anger faded and she blinked her eyes in a way that she hoped would convey her thanks to Jaune, who chuckled again. "Wow, whatever you did to yourself really knocked it out of you didn't it?"

"Yeeghs," Pyrrha groaned in reply, even her facial muscles feeling strained and barely responding.

At that point Ren came out of the bathroom, looking around quizzically. "Nora?"

"Off to save the extra pancakes from Pyrrha's not being there." Jaune replied. "If you want to catch up to her before she goes full Nora on the cafeteria you better hurry."

Ren's eyes narrowed but he smiled. _It looks as if someone else has learned how to deal with the wild Nora. It remains to be seen if this was a fluke though._ He nodded, then made for the door. Jaune looked back at Pyrrha, but the redhead's eyes had already begun to drift closed again, and Jaune laughed quietly, reaching over to pull her blanket back over her. "Hope you feel better partner."

"Seee gyou…" Pyrrha murmured, before her eyes closed completely once again. It was near to midday by the time she woke up again, which would have been fine, indeed something Pyrrha wouldn't mind doing every day but for the reason she woke up.

 **BANG!** "Hello Red!" Yang shouted as she smashed open the door to team JNPR's room, not noticing or not caring (it was a thin line with Yang) that the door had actually been magnetically locked before she 'knocked' on it. "You still feeling under the weather?"

Pyrrha's eyes opened again and if anger was a physical force, Yang would have been immolated on the spot. Not that the blonde bomber had the decency to notice. "Yep, you're still feeling under the weather. Well don't worry babe, Doctor Yang has the cure for all that ails you."

"…Is that supposed to be a lead up to a dirty joke or something?" Pyrrha asked, thankful her facial muscles at least worked as they should now. Despite not knowing her for much more than a few weeks the Mistralian native had a very good idea of Yang's personality.

"Nope, well not right now. Though if you want I could go and get a nurse's uniform?" Yang teased.

"Yaaaaang, stop being so embarrassing!" Ruby whined from where she stood behind Yang, the tiny red-cloaked girl hidden by the bulk of her sister. "We're here to help Pyrrha get better, not make fun of her."

"Tsk, you and Weiss are ruining all my fun little sister." Yang griped, but moved toward the bed, holding up a small tin of something, the label of which Pyrrha couldn't make out. She sat down next to Pyrrha's bed on the night table it shared with the next bed over.

"Okay, so here's the deal Red, I know that trick you pulled, my dad called it some long Asian name, though he never actually taught it to me, was probably afraid I'd overuse it, and I can't say I blame him for that. The gist of it is you push your body well beyond what you can normally do, but pay for it later right?"

Pyrrha tried to nod, but only severe in bobbing her head slightly, which seemed to be enough thankfully. "But Dad also told me the best way to help your body heal from it. So if it's alright with you, me and Ruby are going to give you a massage, shiatsu and regular now."

Normally Pyrrha would not have been comfortable with that. But with the pain and utter exhaustion she was feeling Pyrrha was thankful for any aid she could get.

Taking her look as acceptance Yang reached forward, slowly unraveling Pyrrha from her blanket, thankfully not making any comment about it. Ruby giggled a little but kept on working on laying out a towel and some tiny needles. When she caught Pyrrha looking at them she smiled. "Don't worry they are normal shiatsu sticks. It might feel, and um look, weird but you will feel better afterward."

"Has Yang ever given you a shiatsu massage?" Pyrrha asked, thankful the muscles in her face had begun to work properly. She didn't realize it, but that wasn't because of her body or general exhaustion, but because of the last blow Ranma had caught her with. It was only thanks to her aura and general level of toughness that she had simply been laid out instead of receiving a broken jaw.

"Yep! When I first discovered my Semblance I was always overusing it, I mean, who wouldn't? How cool is it to be able to outrun bullets and zoom and swish and zwaa!" Ruby answered, her hands moving this way and that as if miming zigzagging across a landscape. "But I wasn't very good at it at first, so I often pulled something or worse."

But then Ruby giggled, pointing at Yang. "But I wasn't nearly as much trouble as Yang was when she first activated her Semblance."

"Yeesh, you blow up one measly little barn and no one lets you forget it."

"You put Hugh and Mauve through a steel reinforced concrete wall while lighting the barn on fire." Ruby shook her head sadly. "I know they were bullies and they'd lured you there to ambush you, but come on sis, have some restraint."

"Hey I have plenty of restraint." Pyrrha and Ruby both burst out laughing at that blatantly false statement, though Pyrrha had to stop after only a few seconds, the muscles in her stomach and chest protesting their treatment. Yang still scowled at them both equally before smirking evilly at Ruby. "Oh, so you think I don't huh, well why don't I just tell Pyrrha about the first time Druncle Qrow let you use his scythe hmm?"

"Gah no!" Ruby bleated trying to cover her sister's mouth only to be pulled into a headlock under one of her arms while she continued to use the other one to prepare Pyrrha's bed for her massage. She absently noticed that the girl hadn't changed into her pajamas, which made sense given Pyrrha was asleep before Yang and Nora had carried her to bed. Her bra and panties would also let Yang have more access to her body more easily anyway.

"Alright that's enough of that, let's get to work and get our friendly neighborhood champion here up on her feet."

 **OOOOOOO**

Thanks to Blake warning them, Ren, Nora and Jaune did not go back to their dorm room after lunch. The boys were certain that doing so would probably cross that line in the sand that allowed two boys and two girls to live in the same room without trying to either delete one another, or die of blood loss. Nora just thought it would be boring to watch Pyrrha get a massage without being allowed to try it out herself.

Jaune decided to head over to Ranma's room, figuring if nothing else he could just hang out there for a time. Not having any other idea of what to do Ren and Nora followed, the orange-haired girl momentarily peeved about something she saw on her scroll.

Looking over his shoulder Jaune cocked an eyebrow at Ren and that worthy shrugged in reply. "Nora has apparently been banned from using the weight room outside of classes."

"We've barely been here a week Nora, what did you do?" Jaune asked, not certain he wanted to know.

"Nothing! This… Is … An … Outrage!" Nora shouted, getting over her depression with one of her sudden mood changes that still took Jaune by surprise at times. "I haven't even been in there more than a few times."

"Evidently someone called ahead." Ren's voice was as droll and deadpan as Jaune had come to expect from his friend. "Nora had a bit of an incident with one of the weight machines when she attempted to use her Semblance while on the machine."

"You break one machine and no one lets you forget it." Nora groused.

"You blew it up, which in turn set the exercise room at Morse on fire and then you tried to put the fire out with Magnhild." Ren replied shaking his head. "You're just lucky no one else was in there when you did it, or else we'd be paying that off for the rest of our lives."

Nora pouted at that while Jaune made a point to watch the girl closely when it became their turn on the weight machines. He had no idea yet what her Semblance was, but if it could do something like that, better safe than sorry.

By that point they were in front of the door to Ranma's room and Jaune put that thought on hold for now before knocking. Ranma answered the door, dressed in an Asian style shirt and loose silk pants, his eyebrows rising as he looked at the trio of JNR. "You guys and ginger, what's up?"

"Was that a crack about my hair?" Nora asked dangerously, reaching for her side where she normally kept Magnhild.

"Nope, that was a joke on your normal level of energy Miss Perky pants." Ranma said, then shrugged as the trio looked at him with deadpan expressions, even Nora. "Yeah I know that's horrible, hence ginger."

Before Nora could reply Jaune cut in. "Hey Ranma, I was wondering if you'd let us hang out here for a bit. Yang and Ruby are giving Pyrrha a massage in our dorm, and Ren and I decided to make ourselves scarce. Weiss is taking part of some kind of seminar over in the library, and I… have no idea what Blake's doing right now."

Blake was in fact exploring Beacon, or that had been the plan at least. That was before she found a small out of the way garden behind the teacher's dormitory. Coupled with a few sunbeams and soft grass, Blake's attempt to read had ended quickly, and the cat Faunus was at that very moment catnapping.

"Yeah sure, come on in, just don't expect me ta entertain ya, I'm cooking something right now." Ranma said gesturing the three to enter.

Inside they found Ranma had replaced the book case with a TV and a DVD player, the TV hanging on the wall while the DVD player was on the floor in front of the beanbags that made up the majority of the furniture in the room. Seeing that Nora turned, racing off with a shout of 'be right back' over her shoulder.

Ren paused as he passed the kitchenette, sniffing lightly. "Chocolate and something else, something sweet?"

"Sweets and sugar help your muscles recover from strain, and after the beating I gave her I figured I'd need an offering for Pyrrha if I wanted to ask her a favor."

Jaune and Ren looked at one another, remembering the wide, beaming smile that Pyrrha had worn as Yang and Nora half carried, half dragged her to bed the day before. "Somehow I doubt you'd need it, she enjoyed that fight just as much as you I think, but more power to you anyway Ranma." Jaune replied.

As Ranma went back to his cooking Nora arrived, carrying a six pack of grape soda and a bag of popcorn. "Movie time! Renny, can you whip up some pancakes for us?"

"Sorry Nora, Ranma's already using his kitchen, and I am not going to ask to use ours. And remember, we're not allowed in the cafeteria kitchen." Ren replied.

"Huh, why's that? I'd have thought Beacon would be happy to let you kids build up your cooking skills, would make you more self-reliant and all that." Ranma asked, looking up form where he was rolling out some phyllo dough.

"There apparently was an… event… last year. Some of the teacher's own coffee found it's way into the hands of a few students. There were several caffeine caused incidents before it was resolved, while at the same time, the teachers were given some of the student's supplies. Professor Oobleck had to be hospitalized for withdrawal symptoms, and Professor Ozpin apparently nearly killed those involved."

Ren saw no point to say he'd actually looked into the idea of using the cafeteria's kitchen the first day they had arrived at Beacon, knowing that it was only a matter of days before Nora asked him to make her some of her favorite food. Planning ahead like that was second nature, and if he wanted to do something like that for his friend before she asked, that was no one's business but his.

"I also haven't had time to head into Vale for supplies anyway." Ren said now. "And I get the impressions that as one of the A-class Hunter teams we'd get into a lot of trouble if we tried to raid the cafeteria even just for supplies."

"Sorry Nora. I'm using this area for now, you're going to have to wait." Ranma stated, turning back to his work.

"Why don't we work on our homework first, then we can spend the rest of the evening watching movies." Ren asked in a way that made it more of a statement than a question. Nora pouted, but sat down in the beanbag next to his and the two bent over their homework.

Jaune however had already finished all of his homework for the week, having decided to stay on top of it as part of his attempt to become a leader worth his team. Instead he and Ranma talked about training, which brought with Ranma inviting Jaune out it in the early mornings, but Jaune declined saying that Yang would probably beat the crap out of him he did.

Ranma didn't quite get that, but ignored it for now. "Well, I can always reintroduce you to Dodge™ Jaune, that'll get your skills up fast."

"NO!" Jaune interrupted quickly. **"** Never again! You were up to knives when you used that teaching technique the last time, I don't want to know what it the next stage is."

"Chainsaws," Nora and Ranma said as one then grinned at one another. Next to the hyperactive girl Ren sighed hoping the two of them didn't have more moments like that. Nora's odd sense of humor was tough enough to handle alone, he wasn't certain Beacon would survive more than that.

His hope was almost immediately answered. Their homework done Nora hopped to her feet, heading over to the small kitchenette then frowning as she made her way through the cupboards, dodging around where Ranma was still working on whatever he was making. "What the heck,this isn't a real kitchen, there's no pancake mix here! And you're making sweet things but not including pancakes, that's a travesty!"

"I'm more of a tamagoyaki man if I've got the choice. Them or bagels, bagels are just yum." Ranma said, not looking up from where he was dipping a long roll of phyllo dough stuffed with pecans, raisins and other things into a small pot of slowly cooling chocolate, setting them out after each was fully dipped to cool.

His attention to this task did not stop Ranma from sensing Nora's attempt try to kick his head in. Using his tongs he deflected her foot upwards as his other hand snaked out to smack her pivot leg out of position so that she fell backwards rear first onto the limited floor of the kitchenette. **"** Was it something I said?"

"Death to the bagel lover!" Nora shouted, leaping to her feet and attacking again only to be flipped once more.

"I see I need to sign up another person for hand to hand training." Ranma mused, staring down at the angry girl while Ren got between them holding her back now.

"Actually Nora's quite good at hand-to-hand usually," said Ren as he tried to pull his best friend away from the teacher. Not only were her attacks not working, but there was most certainly some kind of rule about attacking teachers outside of the combat class environs anyway. **"** It's just that when she's angry she forgets everything but how to use her hammer."

"Gotcha," Ranma nodded, still looking at the orange-haired girl quizzically. **"** That might be something you should still work on though in your own time. Speaking of," he said holding up the plate holding the sweets he'd been working on. Ren noticed now that the latest sweet was only one of three on it, though the others hadn't taken nearly as long to make apparently. "I'm going to go and see your teammates and the sisters crazy."

Nora calmed down enough to nod, glaring at him. "Tomorrow morning, Renny-bear is going to make some of his special pancakes, and you will like them! You will like them more than that non-sweet crunchy crap that is bagels!"

"What is this, a breakfast dictatorship?" Ranma asked laughing. **"** Sorry but I don't have much of a sweet tooth."Ranma had possessed a sweet tooth when he had his female form, but his taste buds as a full guy once more had changed dramatically.

"You will like them!" Nora shouted again, small arcs of electricity coating her fingers for a moment though she calmed down and leaned back against Ren's shoulder.

"You three can stay here, just remember to clean up after yourselves." Ranma said exiting the room without answering Nora again. Not two minutes later he was knocking on the door to team junipers room. **"** Everybody decent in there?"

"Thoroughly indecent, but don't let that stop you!" Yang's voice replied.

Ranma paused, his hand on the door knob. "Okay, maybe I should've been more specific. Ruby, is Pyrrha fully clothed?"

"Her tops on and she's in bed under the covers now, we just finished." Ruby replied. Then Ranma heard her mutter to her sister. "You are so embarrassing! Wait, why are you undressing!?"

"Right… I'm just going to stay out here for a bit." Ranma said blushing now at the thought of Yang naked. Not that it wasn't enticing just more than he was ready for at the moment.

"Well that's no fun," Yang groaned, her voice coming closer. A second later she opened the door, then looked down at the tray Ranma was holding smirking a little. "Feeling sorry you beat up on the poor little student? Going by her grin yesterday and the smiles she's had since we started to talk about the fight I don't think it's necessary."

"I wanted to go over the tactics of that fight actually, and wanted to ask her for a favor, figured it wouldn't hurt. Though I also got stuff for you and Ruby."

Yang blinked then looks down at the tray again her expression softening slightly as she saw the Asiatic treat mame daifuku there. She leaned forward and grabbed Ranma around the shoulders in a hug, rubbing her cheek against his. "I think I might have to keep you Ranma."

"Gee thanks," Ranma said with blush, trying to get away from her grip without losing control of the tray.

Ruby zoomed over and grabbed it, allowing Ranma to quickly break out of Yang's grip following the speedy girl. "That reminds me," he said pointing at her as Ruby sat down. "You and I are going to sit down and talk about that Semblance of yours, specifically if you've ever tried to train it for your arms. That, and changing direction without the help of your overcompensating weapon."

"I'm not overcompensating for anything, it's a perfectly sized weapon for someone like me!" Ruby shouted, waving her hands wildly to both sides, and all three of her listeners laughed.

Then Pyrrha's eyes widened as she saw the long ovoid's of chocolate on the tray. "Is that chocolate baklava? Gimme!" As soon as the word 'GImme' left her mouth Pyrrha blushed, both of her hands rising to cover her mouth as she looked at the other three.

But rather than make fun of her Ranma simply held the out to her, while Yang smirked, grabbing up a tray of small fluffy looking white balls which Pyrrha had not seen before. Seeing her quizzical expression Ranma shrugged. "Mame daifuku. You might like them too Ruby, though if you don't I've got chocolate chip cookies."

Ruby looked torn for a moment, looking from her sister's plate to her own, debating trying something new to sticking with her oldest standby, that was until Yang turned away quickly, having just taken a bit from one of the small fluffy balls. "Nope, you've got your own cookies Rubes these are mine! Maybe if someone makes more than four pieces you can have one then."

Ranma laughed at that then sat down across from Pyrrha. "Seeing as you're able to move your arms, I take it that the shiatsu massage worked?"

"Somewhat," Pyrrha said, chomping into her chocolate baklava enthusiastically, smile both at the taste and the memories of the last time she'd had this, a feeling of nostalgia coming over her for a moment. "I still don't have much aura, and I have bruises practically everywhere, but at least I can move now."

The massage hadn't done anything for Pyrrha's various injuries, just the pulled muscles, overall stiffness and her physical exhaustion.

Ranma nodded then segued into an analysis of their fight. Yang listened intently as did Ruby, occasionally commenting, though most of it Pyrrha had already figured out.

In fact, she had also figured out something else. "How much were you holding back?" she asked between bites of her treat, thankful that Ranma had also brought milk for them all.

Ranma glanced at her quickly, but noticed that Pyrrha didn't seem put out or angered by that idea merely quizzical. _Good attitude to have._ He thought then smiled. "I didn't hold back much of my tricks, a lot of my speed and some of my strength, but only one or two of my more high-end attacks."

Yang frowned. "But you were able to do that whole after battle healing thing of yours. Is that your Semblance? And how much aura does that take?"

"It's not my Semblance, that's something else." Ranma smirked slightly, shaking his head. "I actually hope you don't have to see my Semblance any time soon, it's kind of embarrassing really."

"Oh, now I'm interested," Yang replied, grinning at him. "I'm almost tempted to challenge you right now, just to see if I can get you to activate it.

"Heh, judging by how well you did in Junior's bar that's not gonna happen. Unless you've gotten better in the days since?"

Yang grumbled at that, still not happy that she had lost that fight, and knowing now that Ranma had held back on her. She looked up again fire in her eyes suddenly. "Does that mean if I prove I've gotten better you'll accept my challenge?"

"I'll accept any challenge, but I don't think you'd get much out of it at this point. Give me a few weeks working with you, as well as Glynda and her class work, and then we'll see. But at this point your styles too linear to really be a good matchup with me. That's why Pyrrha was able to push me harder than you were, she's much more adaptable and her personal style is based on mobility and dodging unlike yours."

"Which is why you've been working on my footwork and legwork." Yang said nodding her head. "I get that, though it is kind of irritating to know that Pyrrha matched up against you better than I did." She then smirked leaning forward into Ranma's personal space, almost forcing him to look down into her chest for a moment before he backed up. "So, who do you think would win in a fight between the two of us?"

"It'd depend on circumstances." Ranma seven shrugged. "At range if she could keep it open Pyrrha. Close in," he frowned, looking at Pyrrha cocking an eyebrow at her.

Thanks to the context Pyrrha understood that Ranma was asking her if we could share her Semblance, and after a moment she shrugged her shoulders indicating it was his decision. "If you could overcome her Semblance, you'd probably win." he said obliquely. "No offense Pyrrha, but once you're aura began to fail so did your ability to take hits, and Yang's an aura powerhouse thanks to her Semblance."

Ruby nodded. "That's what makes her special."

"The way you said that makes it sound almost like an insult little sister. Just because you can't take any hits doesn't mean you need to disparage someone who can." Yang said firmly.

Ruby pouted a little. "All right, so my aura doesn't really help me take much damage, sue me! I'm so fast most things have trouble hitting me anyway."

"And what if you ran into a Grimmm that specialized in speed?" Ranma asked cocking an eyebrow. "One who was almost as fast as you were?" He held up a hand as Ruby made to speak. "That was a rhetorical question, the answer is that you never turn down someone's offer to help. Which I guess what you've been doing with your sister right, Yang's tried to teach you some hand-to-hand training but you always turn her down."

Ruby continued to pout as Yang nodded affirmatively. Pyrrha reached out patting her leg gently. "Ruby, Hunters and Huntresses need to be well-rounded, you can't always rely on your weapon or even your Semblance. That's why I learned hand-to-hand, would you like me to help you? I know some tae kwon do, and Aikido whereas I think your sister specializes in judo and boxing?"

"Yep, Yang said with a nod. "It's my father style, that and Tiger Fist." She frowned, looking at her little sister then nodded. "That could actually be a better idea than me teaching you Ruby," she said gently shaking her head. "I should've realized it, but our different body types mean you probably need to learn another style."

"Still don't see why I need to learn how to fight with my hands, can't I just make a backup weapon? Ooh, how about wrist blasters, or explosive gauntlets like yours Yang!"

"And if you're ammunition fails or if they get broken somehow in a fight?" Yang asked archly.

"Actually Yang, you probably should look into a long-range weapon of some kind too. Admittedly that's a bit of a pot calling the kettle black," Ranma cut in scratching at his pigtail as he looked away quickly at Yang's glare. "But it's true. How about a compromise? Ruby, you try to come up with a long-range weapon for Yang and me, and Pyrrha and I will help you with your combat style."

"I definitely think I'm going to have to step up my own training." Pyrrha said with a nod. "So that works fine for me."

Yang frowned, not liking the idea of Ranma and Pyrrha having more time together, but couldn't really figure out a reason to argue against it. Pyrrha didn't notice this having turned her attention entirely on Ranma. "You mentioned a favor you wanted to ask me about?" She giggled, licking her lips lightly to get a crumb from her chocolate baklava. "Consider me appropriately buttered up now Ranma."

That made Yang laugh, but before she could tease either of them Ranma just nodded and went on. "The edge of Akuo, what's that made of?"

"That's a metal called diamondium, it has some of the properties of diamonds, and retains an edge which is incredibly sharp for decades. It's very rare, but there are a few small mines in Mistral that mine small amounts of it per year. It also absorbs aura and can slice through Grimmm hide easily, which is the real reason it's so coveted. Though of course the larger Grimmm types can grow armor hard enough to turn it aside."

Pyrrha paused then, frowning. "I'm afraid if you wanted some to add to a weapon in the near future, I'm afraid I can't help you. I might be famous, but my contacts don't include any one who is involved with diamondium except for my aunt. She runs a blacksmith shop, and sometimes has a few ounces of it on hand, though even that is rare."

"Damn, there goes that idea. Don't suppose you'd let me have your weapon to experiment with?" Pyrrha's look was very droll at that and Ranma shrugged. "Thought not."

"I could send a message to Aunt Thetis but I'm afraid that it would take weeks. Besides even if she has some on her, I can't expect her to release daimondium of all things to someone else for no profit." Pyrrha said, shaking her head and laughing. "I'm afraid you would have to give me something else to offset that."

Ranma thought about that then smiled suddenly. "How about a martial arts technique that gives you a holdout weapon?"

"A technique that makes a weapon? Sounds interesting,." Yang mused, as Ruby nodded. That kind of thing sounded right up her alley.

"Yep. Where's that red sash of yours?" Ranma asked.

"Probably with the rest of my armor in my locker, why?"

"Nevermind then, Yang, you mind if I borrow that scarf of yours for a second?"

Yang smirked, reaching up to her neck and unwrapping her infinity scarf, slowly and teasingly as she leaned over toward Ranma. "If you want to undress me Ranma, I insist we wait until we're alone. At least for the first time."

As Ruby shouted Yang's name, Pyrrha blushed and looked away while Ranma blushed too, shaking his head to look away from Yang's eyes. "That's not what I meant and you know it Bad Girl."

"Calling me that nickname really doesn't help your case Ranma." Yang laughed, handing her scarf over.

Coughing into his free hand, Ranma tried to get control of his blood flow. "Okay, this is a technique a frenemy of mine used occasionally."

"Frenemy?" the three girls asked in unison, before looking at one another and laughing.

"Yes, frenemy, sometimes friend sometimes rival. Frenemy sounds better than frival, but anyway back on topic. Watch." So saying Ranma held the scarf up, then snapped it out. But where a normal piece of cloth would have flop back after the move lost its force, the scarf went rigid, appearing solid.

As they watched Ranma turned slightly, slashing down at fork set next to the chocolate baklava. The spoon was cut straight through. "To put it in terms you'd understand it's a way to infuse Aura into cloth. You can harden it to use as a weapon, even give it an edge GAH!"

Ranma reared his head back as Ruby appeared in a swirl of rose petals right in his face. "Can you use it on other things, like, like my cape?"

"Heh, yep, there's no limit to the type of cloth, though the larger the item the more aura intensive the technique is. Scarfs, ribbons, bandanas, sashes are all of a size that you can use the technique easily and can be useful as a weapon." Ranma said, backing up and handing the scarf over to Ruby, who pouted as the technique slowly faded as she held it.

"I want to learn that one too Ranma," Yang said nodding her head seriously. "Frankly you should probably make I mandatory in that class of yours."

"I would if I thought most people had enough Aura control to use it." Ranma shrugged. "that's not the case though."

"Well if you can teach me that Ranma, I will certainly try to get you some diamondium." Pyrrha said happily. Then she cocked her head. "I have to ask, how did you get so good so young? I fully understand that there are people stronger than me out there. That's why I came to Beacon, the fact that most of the teachers here are all immensely respected Hunters. Even…" Pyrrha paused, not wanting to speak ill of someone.

"Professor Port?" Ranma asked.

At Pyrrha's quiet nod and Yang and Ruby's chuckles he shook his head. "You didn't try to get through that Semblance of his. With that, I bet he could tank a lot of punishment, which probably made him a very good Hunter in the field. I won't say his teaching style is the best, but don't think all of those stories are just hot air. There might be something in them you could use Yang, since your style is close to his."

Yang stood up abruptly her hair and eyes beginning to burn. "Don't you dare say I've anything in common with that fatso!"

"Woah!" Ranma held up his hands in the unarmed position. "Pax, I won't bring him up again. Is this because he winked at you?"

Yang shuddered. "Never speak of that again."

Ruby giggled at her sister, then squawked as Yang pulled her into a noogy. "What was that Ruby, was that you actually trying to make fun of your older sister?!"

"Alright enough with the sibling abuse." Ranma muttered shaking his head. "In answer to your question Pyrrha, I got as good as I am because of my old man. He was…" Ranma paused then shrugged. "Bat shit crazy I guess."

The others all stared at him, and Ranma shrugged once more. "Trust me, I could come up with dozens of examples off the top of my head. Forcing me to run with him on my back along with a sofa from Grimmm, making me fight him without Oyaji holding back when I was eight years old. Chasing after squirrels with one arm tied behind my back, waiting me down with nearly a ton at one point…"

"The point is, I was taught by someone who refused to believe that there were any physical limitations to how good I could become in the Art, and because of that I never really understood there should be one. That let me push well beyond normal people, so don't feel bad that you can't match up just yet." He suddenly grinned, holding up with a finger. "Don't worry, if you really want to get as good as I can, we can train as hard as my old man trained me."

Pyrrha shivered a little, something about the way Ranma had said that bothered her. "I suppose…" she said hesitantly looking over at Yang who shrugged her shoulders. They haven't done much actual training, mostly sparring, but Yang was willing to go along with it for now. After all, how hard could it be?

Elsewhere Jaune shivered, looking up suddenly then smiling. "I believe someone else has fallen into the Ranma sphere, I feel so sorry those poor pitiful souls."

Then he blinked as Nora threw popcorn in his face. "Quiet! This is the best part."

 **OOOOOOO**

It took the rest of the weekend for Pyrrha to fully recover, though she was still wincing occasionally as she walked to her first class Monday. While walking Pyrrha noticed everyone looking at her and whispering of course, that was nothing new. What was were the types of looks she was getting now and as she entered the professor ports room behind her teammates Pyrrha began to mentally categorize the looks between several different classifications.

One was surprisingly nice, respectful but not adoring. She was getting more nods of hello and recognition rather than looks of recognition and awe, as if her loss had made her more approachable, which was all to the good. There were others who looked at her as if they pitied her for some reason while others as if their own dreams had been shattered by her loss, which was rather strange to Pyrrha. Still others, older students for the most par were sizing her up.

Then there were the few students here from Mistral. Most of them looked almost affronted, looking at her with pity or something like it, she wasn't certain. Unfortunately she had a very good idea why she was getting those particular looks. Pyrrha Nikos wasn't known as the champion of Mistral for nothing after all, her entire nation had taking a inordinate amount of pride in her 'Invincible Girl' persona.

 _Good riddance to bad rubbish!_ She thought, beaming at Jaune and the others as they waved her over to join them. Her teammates had already set down, leaving a space between Nora and Jaune with Ren on Nora's other side, situating one good student with one poor student as Weiss had ordered them to. She had been the one to organize the two team's scholastic endeavors.

As she sat down Weiss was speaking, or rather threatening Ruby. "Now if you fall asleep again Dunce, I'm taking Crescent Rose away!"

Pyrrha laughed as Ruby flung her arms around Weiss desperately hugging the other size-challenged girl. " **No**! You can't take my precious away!"

Flushing Weiss tried to push the other girl away while Ruby nuzzled her cheek against Weiss' and clung to her like a gigantic sloth. "L-let me go dolt! You don't just hug someone out of the blue like this, especially in public!"

Ruby's response of, "Wait so I can hug you so long as we're not in public? Aww, thanks Weiss!" had the rest of their group laughing aloud at Weiss' bright red face and Ruby's cluelessness.

The looks Pyrrha had noticed continued as the eight of them walked between classes and then into the cafeteria. Here they ran into other older students whose response to Pyrrha exhibition match against Ranma was much more positive.

"Hey Red over here!" Coco greeted them waving her to a seat with them, only to blink as a red and black streak flew past her.

"Velvet!" Ruby said, zipping into the open space next to the rabbit Faunus.

"Hello Ruby," Velvet giggled, then let the younger girl touch her ears. There wasn't anything malicious or even teasing in the way Ruby was fascinated by her ears, Velvet had seen the same response from kids younger than her several times, and it always amused her. Besides, Ruby in turn had let her touch Ruby's hood, which was almost sinfully soft.

Behind the rosy speedster the rest of the group followed Pyrrha over to sit with the upperclassman. Coco look at them all, locking eyes with Yang for a moment who smirked at her, causing Coco to smirk in turn before looking over at Pyrrha. "So, that was one hell of a show you put on, what little we all saw from the recordings anyway. You were up close and personal with that sphere of power that Ranma used, did you figure out what it is?"

"It felt like aura given physical form. Maybe that's his Semblance?" Pyrrha asked.

"Nope." Yang shook her head. "Remember Ranma said it wasn't his Semblance, plus he's got that after battle healing thing. Kind of weird that."

"Hmm… well, whatever, if we start in on that fight now we'll still be here when lunch period ends. Anyway, I have to thank you all for sticking up for my cute little bunny friend here." Coco went on ignoring Velvet's near habitual shout of 'C-Coco!' her face unusually serious. "Vel's taken a lot of shit from people over the years because of her heritage and the fact she's too gentle to want to fight back on her own behalf, not like those White Fangs assholes."

No one noticed Blake wince a little at that, but the disguised cat Faunus didn't speak up in defense of her former compatriots and Coco finished, her smile now back in place. "Even if it was just attest, I'm glad someone stuck up for Vel this time around."

"Actually," Pyrrha said looking over Jaune who looked away bashfully. "That was mostly Jaune here. It was his standing up for Velvet that led the rest of us. I'm not saying we wouldn't have, but I'm afraid most of us would've simply attacked him instead of tried to talk him down."

"Say it with a smile girl." Coco said laughing. "This is a combat school, a lot of shit gets solved by fighting here."

"I love Beacon!" said Yang and Ruby in unison, before the younger girl frowned. "Don't curse!"

Everyone else laughed, while Weiss simply shook her head, saying something about barbarians under her breath.

"So, introductions." The fashionista began, pointing to herself then at the others around her. "You know my magnificent self of course, and you've met Velvet cake. The big guy is Yatsuhashi, I understand that Yang over there knows him and our last member, my own partner Fox. You'll probably meet team RUST some other time, we like to hangout when we're both on campus at one time."

Blake frowned at Fox for a moment, trying to figure out if he was a Faunus or not before deciding he wasn't, his features might look vaguely Faunus, and those ears at first gave her an impression of it, but that was wrong. He didn't smell right for one thing. "Are you… blind?" she asked instead, staring at his eyes.

Fox sighed but nodded, and waited for the response that always seemed to garner. Ruby's response however was not what he had expected. "That's so cool! You're like Red Demon, fighting the evil doers with your enhanced senses. And you're even a hand-to-hand fighter my sister says. That's awesome!"

As Yatsuhashi smiled getting the reference Fox cocked his head thoughtfully and Coco blinked then pulled her sunglasses down her nose slightly to stare at Ruby over the top of them. "You're not going to say he's disabled or anything? Or question why he's here?"

"Why would I do that?" Ruby asked blinking in shock. "If Fox is here doesn't that mean he doesn't need help or anything like that? Anyone who's here has proven they've got the skills to be here and want to make the world a better place, so why would I insult him by implying anything else?"

To his team's surprise, Fox reached over and rubbed the top of Ruby's head for a moment, smiling at her. Coco laughed loudly, shaking her head. "you're a good kid Ruby and cute too. Yang, I'm afraid I'm stealing your little sister."

"Hey!" Yang said, grabbing Ruby and pulling her away lightly from the older teens. "Mine!" Everyone at the table laughed, and they all fell into an easy conversation after that, the older teens welcoming the younger groups as their equals and friends.

 **OOOOOOO**

Walking next to her brother Benzaiten towards Glynda's classroom Wednesday, noticed two seniors smirking at his back before talking to one another. "I'm surprised, I thought most of our students would have better instincts than this. I wouldn't be surprised if you're challenged some point to have some more 'exhibition matches' as early as this weekend.

"Good," Ranma said with a smirk. "I'm getting bored."

Benzaiten halted, staring at him, perforce halting Ranma. "You've only been here less than a week. How can you be bored already?" _And oh my word, is that the most terrifying thing I've ever heard._

Ranma shrugged. "Teachings all right, but I only teach once a week, and I don't really assign any homework. And while most of the facilities here are great, and I've even begun working with Ruby on creating my own weapon, there just isn't enough action to interest me."

Benzaiten thought about that then shrugged. Given all of the unique ways Ranma could go about making trouble instigating the upper year students to try and fight him even en-masse was not actually that high on the list. "Just don't cripple any of them."

"Wouldn't even dream of it." Ranma said actually looking a little shocked. "Hurt them sure, show them that Auras aren't the impenetrable defense they all seem to think, but that's all."

They walked into the classroom and moved to stand behind her, and Glynda smiled at them both faintly, before looking around as her classroom filled up with students. She moved to the center of the room, and didn't even have to use her switch to get their attention this time, simply standing there glaring at them did that.

"Good morning, as today is Wednesday you should all know what today is about, partnerships and teamwork. I will be pitting you against hard light constructions made to look, act and fight like Grimmm in various different, randomized environments."

"Let me reiterate, this is something that will not only be important for you during the rest of your time in Beacon, it can save your lives. If I see anyone trying to grandstand, if I see anyone trying to become a…" she sneered disgracefully "lone wolf, you will suddenly find yourself with so much punishments. detentions and cleaning duties you'll think the sky has fallen. Is that all understood?"

You could've heard a cricket in the sudden silence and she nodded. That had been pretty much the same speech she'd given last Wednesday, with the added benefit of the punishments listed at the end so it shouldn't have come as a surprise. The next part however, which she and Headmaster Ozpin had discussed, would. "Very good. However the second half of the day will be devoted to hand-to-hand instruction, for which I will turn the classroom over to Professor Saotome."

A chorus of groans went around the room at that but Glynda slapped her riding crop into her head, and silence descended like an angle. "You **cannot** rely simply on your weapon. I myself am a black belt in several martial arts styles, which I deliberately chose to augment my abilities. If you think your skill with your weapon is the only skill you need then you become both a liability to your team, and a danger to yourself."

Ranma smirked at Yang over her shoulder, winking at the blond, who grinned back, as Ruby and Weiss both pouted as did Blake. Yang blinked at that, staring at her partner who shrugged her shoulders whispering, "I don't like hand-to-hand. I'm okay added, just not my preference."

"We'll see if you're okay or not Blakey," Yang replied firmly. "No way am I going to let my partner rely on her weapon alone."

"Oh?" Blake asked, what eyebrow arching challengingly. "And what would you do against someone armed with a sniper rifle at long-range?"

"Rely on Ruby right now," Yang replied blandly. "But we're working on it."

The two height challenged girls weren't the only ones looking askance, but after Glynda's speech they did look a little more thoughtful about it rather than simply dismissive. Glynda nodded "Good, now, to begin with…"

By the end of the class, Glynda had a very good idea of what teams had already begun to work teamwork into their free time exercises, and which ones hadn't. And she had made several students stumble by splitting up their actual partnerships and pairing them with the other members of their teams. In this manner Glynda was able to see who had the best and tactical mind and who was most flexible in their combat styles.

It was called free time because it was up to the students have used it, but it was actually included in their final evaluations for the year. Glynda and the other professors made certain to note what students were slacking, what students were concentrating on their Scholastic studies, and which were training their physical hunting skills.

Some of those teams were surprising. For example, several of the teams that had begun to exhibit true Hunter mentality hadn't thought outside the box. But their adaptability made up for that. As the first group that she had broken up, Ren and Jaune worked surprisingly well together after a few moments getting used to one another's style. Jaune took control of the center of the battlefield while Ren attacked in a hit and run style sniping at their enemies weakening them for Jaune to kill. They still fell eventually, but made a fight of it against the large pack of Beowolves they faced.

Other matches had not surprised her nearly as much. The fact that Ruby and Yang could work together came as no surprise to her or anyone else who knew they were sisters. How utterly devastating they could be on Grimm seemed to shock more than one of the students, but all the teachers merely smiled watching them literally tear apart dozens of packs of lesser Grimm and even a death Stinger the size of the one that Jaune and Pyrrha had dealt with during the initiation.

Pyrrha and Nora had issues. While Pyrrha was willing to work with Nora, Nora had no tactical sense other than simply smashing anything in her way. She had decent one-on-one tactics, but she couldn't keep the entire battlefield in her mind. Pyrrha could, but Nora didn't seem willing to take her advice at first, and when she started to it was almost too late for them to salvage the battle.

The true problem among the groups were Cardin, Weiss, and to two other students, Lester Greentree and Violet Scalter. Lester and Violet obviously hadn't begun to train with their teammates rather than simply their partners, and both of those teams died during the exercises. They weren't the only casualties, but they were the only ones where they nearly came to blows with their partners. Cardin's personal skills were decent enough for a freshman, but he was definitely not a very good leader, merely a user, and his style, as it had last week with his own partner, showed this.

Weiss when partnered up with Yang was like watching fire and water, they simply couldn't work together very well until they began to listen to Ruby's shouted instructions from the sidelines. It was surprising that they were able to get their act together afterwards, and Glynda would've made a note to talk to them both if not for the fact that Ruby call them both together after their match ended and gave them a very public and very stern talking to. Weiss to her surprise actually took it, looking a little irritated of course, but it was actually listening to her partner intently. Glynda determined to give that team an extra look next week, see if they really did take that little diatribe hard.

Of course there were other surprises. Some of them came in the form of the partnerships as they had been assigned during initiation. Blake and Yang worked amazingly well together for two people who had only been around one another for less than two weeks. They utterly demolished their opponents, a group of mixed Grimm that featured both aerial and land targets. Pyrrha and Jaune, Ren and Nora also worked together very well, though Ruby and Weiss needed some more time to settle in.

There were a few other issues there, including one girl and boy team who refused to actually work together. Glynda made a point of calling them both over to her after the exercise ended and browbeating them both to see her that evening for counseling. It didn't happen often, but sometimes boy/girl teams like that just didn't work out as well as they seemed to be during the initiation. Living together you saw people's faults quickly, and sometimes you had boys who thought that just because they were partners it gave them an inside track to other things.

"That's enough for now," Glynda said, shaking her head as she sent that team back to their seats, watching as they didn't even look at one another. "Mr. Saotome, if you would?"

"For this exercise were going to break you down by body type at first," Ranma said stepping forward. "If you know any martial arts that imply we shouldn't, speak up now otherwise wait until you go with the professor assigned to you. "Benzaiten?"

Benzaiten smiled, taking steps forward and listing off several names from the freshman class, smiling slightly as the only three boys, Sky Lark and Russell Thrush and another youth scowled. They were very slightly built men, of regular height but not strength and they obviously resented the fact that she'd pointed that out. The third boy was almost as height challenged as Ruby, and definitely resented it, as did she and Weiss.

"The rest of you are with me." Ranma said. "We're going to run over to gym number three, while Benzaiten uses the gym here. That is the one that's clear today right?" He asked looking over at Glynda.

Glynda nodded. "I booked it for us."

"Great," he said then without another word turned and raced out of the room coming back after a second. "Well, what are you waiting for? Run! The last one has to do a thousand push-ups."

Glynda chuckled, then ran after him catching up with Ranma easily. He looked at her stance and she shrugged her shoulders. "Did you think I relied solely on my semblance?" she asked dryly. "I just got finished telling this bunch of fools that would be a mistake."

"No, I'm just wondering how the hell you running high heels." Ranma said shaking his head.

"Through great practice and perseverance," Glynda replied causing Ranma to laugh.

To his surprise Yang was last, deliberately falling back into the pack. "Why do you want to sit-ups?"

"Gives me something to do while you're teaching everyone else," She said chuckling and already assuming the forward rest position. "One, two…"

Ranma laughed before turning to the others. "All right, line up in whatever order you want to over here. I'm going to spar with each of you for two minutes, that'll give me an idea of your overall level. Then we'll work up some basic katas which everyone should be able to do. They'll emphasize speed and flexibility at first, strength you'll build on your own during your own gym time. And if you aren't already running to build up your endurance, where the hell've you been?"

That got some laughter, and Ranma motioned to the first person. Cardin stepped forward, his hands held up in a boxer's stance. Ranma actually nodded at that, and raised his own hands into a similar style. "Ready, start."

Cardin launched a jab with somewhat decent speed for his body type, which Ranma blocked with his forearm, pushing it to the side as he let loose his own jab towards Cardin's chest. Cardin blocked it with difficulty, the blow coming in faster than he'd expected, moving to the side and hitting out several times swiftly moving into a combo.

Ranma blocked them, taking in Cardin's entire form for a moment, then smacking one hand just out of position enough for his other hand to knife forward, slamming into the youths side right below his armpit. A mere inch up, and without Aura that could've been a crippling blow. As it was Cardin staggered, scowling angrily.

"Going to have to work on your non-linear defense there," Ranma said with a nod. "Decent boxing techniques, but your footwork needs a lot of work too. When we get to the individual instruction and everyone's doing the first katas, I'll teach you some other katas that'll help you there."

The large freshman nodded his head surprisingly respectfully then moved to the side. "Next."

So it went, until Ranma went through the entire classroom, and Yang had finished her push-ups. She joined the line, and Ranma smirked as he sent the last student on his way. "Why'd I have to fight you, I already have a good idea of your skill level." Which, he reflected, was head and shoulders above the majority of this class.

Ren had speed and decent body control and even style, but no upper body strength to speak of. Blake had the same problem but also she had no formal style. She was a decently self-taught individual, but like Ryoga, that was just not enough against someone who had studied multiple styles. Jaune too had decent enough boxing skills along with a bit of judo, and he'd kept up some of the exercises Ranma had taught him.

Pyrrha on the other hand was simply **good** , the best in the class after Yang. She had several styles under her belt, and had incorporated them into a whole almost as well as Yang had. Ranma would work on her speed and strength for a while, then see what she could learn from his more high end bag of tricks.

"Uh-uh teach," Yang said, licking her lips as she brought up her hands, smirking. "You know you have to at least spar with me, you can't seem to have favorites after all."

"That's true but…" That was all Ranma got out before Yang charged forward, throwing out a punch that would've taken his head off if he hadn't deflected it to one side of his body. He twisted around only to nearly eat a kick, which she had begun to incorporate into her style as she moved with him and away, forcing him to roll the control under the kick. He came out of the roll kicking off the floor back towards Yang, his own leg extended into a kick which he blocked with both of her forearms, the force of it throwing her backwards off her feet.

But Yang rolled in the air, landing on her feet easily and charging forward. "Oh, so ya want to play huh?" Ranma said, laughing. The two began to exchange blows, many of which were so fast several of the students couldn't see them, while Pyrrha laughed and cheered them on, a side of her that the other students a back while Nora shouted beside her.

Behind them Ren and Jaune sighed and shook their heads they looked at one another then, then back at their partners. "I don't suppose that there's going to be some kind of leveling there you know, I mean, Pyrrha becoming more like Nora and vice-versa? That would be bad."

"Your mastery of the understatement is improving," Ren said with a nod and both boys chuckled, as they continue to watch the spar and their partners equally.

Glynda smacked her riding crop into her hand then reached out, her telekinesis lifted both combatants away from each other. "That's quite enough of that. If the two of you want to go at it hammer and tongs, please do so on your own time. Ranma, this is supposed to be your classroom, get to teaching."

"Aww," Yang and Ranma mode is one, then looked at one another and laughed while the rest of the class did the same. Even Cardin chuckled and Dove Bronzewing laughed out loud too, slapping his knee as he stared at the two of them.

"On the whole, that's went very well," Glynda said later that day leaned back in looking at her to helpers. That Benzaiten could teach extremely well was something she had known of course, and she'd had no qualms about letting the more height disadvantaged students in her protégé's capable hands."

That Ranma had volunteered to help and had done so very well was something she hadn't considered. Little did she know that Ranma had toned down his training style a lot, after being talked to by his sister very sternly for several hours the evening before.

"I have to say thank you Ranma. With your edition to the classroom, we're able to give the students much more personalized instruction than I along could ever do. Benzaiten and I were able to do the same thing last year to excellent if limited effect. I hope we can continue that into the future."

"Don't see why we couldn't." Ranma said with a shrug. "Though I won't work them too hard next week."

"Does that have anything for you asking permission for a field trip to Forever Fall?"

"Yep," Ranma said with a nod. "By that time I'll have set up some obstacle courses out there. I took a look at the obstacle courses you have on campus, but they're a little too similar to one another. I want to get them used to moving over different types of terrain, and more importantly moving quietly. If you're ever out in the Badlands, moving quietly is necessary even if you don't think there're Grimm around."

"Sounds sensible," Glynda replied, sighing softly as she sent off the last team review to them. "Let us hope that they continue to learn. Now, I don't suppose you have any tea Benzaiten?"

Ranma left the two women to it, heading back to his room and a comedy flick that Yang had recommended. It was supposed to be an action comedy, but Ranma saw any kind of action movie as a comedy anyway.

He paused halfway into the room however as he stared at the sight of Neo searchin his freezer for something. "Neo, to what do I have the pleasure?" He asked closing the door behind him. "And what the heck are you looking for?"

Given his previous life, Ranma had no issue with people showing up randomly in his room, though this individual showing up like that was a bit of a surprise. _I'd've thought Yang would be the first one to try to break in here._

Without replying Neo held up a spoon then pulled out a small container of Chocolate Chip. She scowled at the size, then looked quizzically over and Ranma, cocking her head.

"No, I don't have any ice cream. I've only been here for less than two weeks, and I'm not exactly in to ice cream as much is you are."

The diminutive girl gasped, setting her ice cream down and both of her hands rising to her cheeks in an expression of mock astonishment. Ranma laughed, looking at her quizzically. "Again, why are you here looking for ice cream? You can't tell me you've already ruined all of the ice cream vendors in Vale."

Neo scoffed, then looked sideways then back at him again. "You have?" She shook her head, then mimed between the two of them, then over at the TV shrugging her shoulders. "You were bored?"

Nodding emphatically Neo looked over at the DVD case then back and Ranma shaking her head sadly before reaching into her backpack which Ranma had just been noticed on the floor at her feet, pulling out several videos and a bottle of some kind of alcohol. "I don't drink, though the movies are welcome."

Shrugging Neo hugged the bottle to her said as if saying more for me then. She looked and Ranma then back at the TV again and Ranma rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll entertain you for a bit I suppose, but where's Roman? I have some questions for that gay bastard."

Neo laughed at his quip, shaking her head and making one hand upwards as if taking flight before flying off into the distance away from her. "Gone on a trip? Well, you tell him from me that he's on my shit list. I've no idea why he's going about robbing Dust stores, doesn't seem like it would be his thing, especially so openly, but he tangled with one of my new students, and if he comes after her again for messing up his heist I'm going to **hurt** him."

His erstwhile guest became serious for a moment staring at Ranma then nodded, message understood, before going back to normal. She then raised a finger, leaving it in the air to as if to indicate the school around them. Then she looked at Ranma quizzically her head cocked to one side. "How do I like it here or how am I finding teaching?"

Neo held up two fingers and Ranma nodded. "Both, okay I like the campus I like the room, and the facilities. The people here are great, teachings okay."

She cocked her head and made a 'tell me more' gesture, and Ranma shrugged again. "I'm teaching them how to survive out in the wilderness, a lot of physical exercises and martial arts, as well as some hunting tips and how to move without leaving a trail. It's kind of a hybrid course really, but it will teach them a lot of stuff they need to know out in the wild."

Neo nodded thoughtfully, then hopped over to the beanbag, sprawling out on her stomach wriggling her cute little rear at Ranma as if trying to get a rise out of him. She got a faint blush, but that was all as Ranma moved to sit in the next beanbag over, looking at the DVD collection neo-had begun to lay out in front of her. "Which one's first?"

Thus began the first weekly movie night between the two strange acquaintances. And if Neo began to subtly probe Ranma about his teaching, and about his own skills, Ranma didn't notice, but nor was he as open about his skills as Neo would have liked.

Little did Ranma know that in a few days' time he would have more action than even a combat junky like him could have ever dreamed of…

End Chapter

* * *

Cliffhanger, sort of. I had several other sections written up for this chapter, and an entirely different place where I wanted to end it, but that would not only have been a bigger cliffhanger, but the rest of the scenes just weren't very good. Some of the interaction points in this chapter got away from me, while others just didn't want to work. Still, it is a good segue chapter into the next chapter, which will start to veer away from canon RWBY big time. Look forward to it everybody!


	8. Chapter 8

I do not own Ranma or RWBY. So sad, yet so glad, since I can't be blamed for that dreck that was the third season, or the non-ending of Ranma 1/2.

I would like to thank ultimaflare0 for going over this chapter for me. Hopefully we've caught all the small mistakes, but I wouldn't prepare to wager on that.

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Changes on the Horizon**

Yang smiled as she stood back from the window, having greeted the dawn, keeping silent with little difficulty so as to not wake her teammates. Not waking her little sister was easy, unless she wanted to get up Ruby could sleep through a hurricane, another thing she had picked up from her druncle Qrow. Blake was a little tougher, she seemed to be able to wake up at the drop of a hat if needed, whereas Weise was somewhere in between. _Gonna have to talk to my oh-so mysterious partner about those senses of hers they're just a little too good._

None of them were true morning people. She'd asked, but none of them had taken her up on the offer to greet the sunrise with her or exercise with Ranma. _Oh well,_ Yang thought gleefully as she pulled on her exercise togs _, more time for me!_ She took a moment to look at herself in the mirror Weiss had installed on the door to the bathroom smirking.

She was again dressed in very short exercise shorts and a very tight t-shirt. The shorts were black, the top white, with a generous décolletage, as Weiss would put it. Of course Weiss would never be able to wear something like this even if she wanted to, which the Schnee heiress would be quick to point out she wouldn't. But Yang could, and did so with a purpose beyond just exercising.

 _Dressed to kill and thrill!_ With that she tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her slowly.

Outside the dormitories she found Ranma, Yatsuhashi and Fox already there. Fox and Ranma were meditating across from one another for some reason, while Yatsuhashi was moving through an extremely complicated kata. It looked like one of the one's that Ranma had taught her to her, only modified and added to with a style Yang didn't recognize, one that utilized quick, almost vicious looking knee and elbow blows. _Damn, those look like they would hurt like a bitch, especially from someone Yatsuhashi's size._

By the time she turned away from the giant, Ranma and Fox had stood up, bowing slightly to one another. Fox moved silently to join his friend, and Ranma grinned at Yang. "Do you want to spar, or do you think you might be up for something a little different?"

"Depends on what different means hot stuff," Yang said with a grin, cocking will her hips, one hand on her waist as other played with her hair.

As she had almost expected Ranma flushed and looked away, and she grinned. For all his combat prowess, he really was a babe in the woods when it came to flirting.

"I'm setting up an obstacle course in the Emerald Forest. I'd like to see someone go through it besides me, Tacticus and Port," he said with a shrug.

"What's in it for me?" Yang asked, crossing her arms under her breasts, bringing Ranma's attention to them with her normal level of subtlety. It worked, as she had hoped, though Ranma looked away after only the briefest of glances, but she was wearing him down, good!

"Well we could fight while going through it," Ranma said with a shrug. "You need to get better at fighting in different terrain types anyway. Though maybe that'd be a little too hard for you given the number of traps and other things I've already set up."

"Ohhhhh?" Yang's eyes narrowed before she smirked, crossing the short space separating them. Staring slightly upwards into his face, a bare inch separating her chest from his, she asked throatily, "Is that a challenge?"

To her joy Ranma didn't back down, his blue eyes staring right back into her violet ones. "If you want to think of it like that sure, though if so why don't we raise the stakes a little? How about if you win, you have to cook dinner for me and Beni? Ruby said that you're a great cook that first time we met."

"And if I win, you have to take me out on a date," Yang said promptly, only barely keeping from pumping her fist in victory, settling for doing it in her head, a mini-Yang leaping up and down in glee. "Say this weekend?"

Ranma flushed even further, shaking his head and looking away. "Maybe I should throw the contest then," he muttered, still looking away and blushing now but even so that only made his words more endearing.

"Aww that's sweet Ranma," Yang said pulling her him into a hug and not crashing his face against her breasts this time, just a simple hug. Then she pulled away, holding Ranma at arm's length. "But don't you dare! If I beat you, either in a straight up spar or this little obstacle course of yours, I want in to be an honest win."

"Deal," Ranma nodded, smirking at her.

"Well then what are we waiting for?"

Leaving Fox and Yatsuhashi to their own light spar Ranma led the way across the school grounds towards the Emerald Forest. There Yang saw a set of ropes tied to the edge, which they used to rappel down, with Yang grinning like a madwoman all the while. Down below Yang found several dozen trees had been knocked down and used to line an initial entrance to the rest of the forest for some reason. Beyond that she could see a few ropes and wires hanging here and there, barely visible through the foliage of the forest and the dawn light above them. "When the heck did you do this?"

"Port and I have been busy the last few days when I'm not helping Glynda, and he isn't teaching," Ranma said with a grin.

"You get along with him?" Yang asked shaking her head. "I don't see that at all."

"He's an okay guy once you get past his stories, and it's not like he's the first…" Ranma paused searching for the right word "boastful or bombastic personality I've had to deal with."

Yang looked at him, but Ranma didn't expand, moving to the front of one of the marked entrances. "See the marks on the trees?" The marks in question for this run were neon-orange exes, so Yang simply rolled her eyes in reply, crouching down next to him. "This course veers off to the right pretty sharply before curving back in. Be careful to follow the x's from spot to spot, though how you get to each in turn is up to you. At the end of all the courses are a few prizes the teams will need to bring back. For this run we won't bother with that though. Ready?"

"Ready set go!" Yang shouted, leaping up into the trees, grabbing a tree limb and flipping her body up further into the woods. She landed for a brief moment on a large branch where pushed herself off quickly, grateful for the past few weeks of building her leg muscles.

Then the first of the obstacles really started. Tripwires set between different branches snagged her leg and arm, pulling what looked like small cupcakes at first towards her through the woods. One of them splattered on her leg, and she stopped, staring down at it. "What the heck, orange mud?"

"Half dried paint actually," Ranma said from behind her, where he was perched on a tree limb directly above her current position. "Those traps fling them faster the further into the obstacle course you go, so the impact actually begins to hurt after a bit. I figured I'd catch a lot of people with this first one, though you never even saw them. That's kind of sad."

"Doesn't matter if I can just ignore them right?"

Before Yang could even blink, Ranma was in her face smacking her forehead hard. "OWW!" Yang looked up, her purple eyes about to flare into red but her anger cooled noticeably under Ranma's serious look.

He gestured down tapping her thigh lightly. "What if someone has a Semblance that allows him to get through your Aura? What if your running low on Aura, or if you twist something? Never take a hit that you can avoid Yang, you should know that!"

Yang nodded, standing back half a step having been mesmerized by Ranma's dark blue eyes for a moment there. "I um, well I mean this is in an obstacle course you're supposed to go through it as fast as possible, right?"

"Not this one," Ranma said with a grin. "This one you have to move through unmarked."

Yang thought about it, then nodded understanding the point. It tied back to Ranma's training them on how to move silently over any kind of terrain, and situational awareness, rather than simple endurance or speed. "Hmm…Is this a team exercise?"

"Got it in one Yang," Ranma said smirking and smacking her lightly on the shoulder.

But Yang growled irritably, looking away. "You just wanted a guinea pig for all this didn't you?"

"Sort of," Ranma replied with a grin before sobering somewhat, shaking his head. "If you don't want to, we can go back and change the wager to a spar or something."

"Good," Yang said with a smile. "I might be okay up here in the trees, but I'm not so good at spotting traps and things like that."

"Well, knowing your weaknesses is half the battle." Ranma said, moving forward, his hand moving away from her thigh with evident reluctance something Yang caught and which caused her to smirk at his back. "Come on I'll show you the rest. But if you tell your team, even if you win in our spar I won't take you on that date of yours."

Yang nodded seriously, and followed him, seeing several different sets of obstacles. "What about Grimm?" Yang asked as they stopped on the outskirts of a pit filled with mud. It looked about a hundred feet wide or so, beyond even her ability to jump without a good run up.

"I did say that Port and I have been busy," Ranma said dryly. "We've kind of denuded the forest of Grimm for a bit. Heh, between the two of us and your class's initiation anyway."

"You could've asked for our help you know," Yang grumbled. "That sounds a lot more fun than some of the classes here."

"Have I mentioned how glad I am to not be taking those?" Ranma quipped then yelled as Yang made to push them into the mud, before leaping over it to land on the other side glaring back at her.

Yang smiled sweetly at him then backed away several dozen yards to get a run up. Leaping forward she almost didn't make it, landing on the edge of the mud hole, her arms flailing for balance.

To her shock Ranma made to push her in for a second. But to Yang's relief he Instead grabbed her shirt, holding her dangling there on the edge of the mud pile until she grabbed his arm to steady herself. "Think you need a bit more of a run up there."

Yang frowned, looking back down at the mud hole. "You made that deliberately wider than anyone could jump didn't you?"

"Yep. Sometimes ya need ta get dirty in the field Yang, just another lesson ya should learn now." Ranma smirked.

Wrapping her arms around Ranma's waist Yang leaned into his arm, squishing her breasts against her shoulder and Ranma. "Have I ever given the impression I mind getting dirty?" She whispered into his ear, then laughed as he blushed as red as Ruby's cape looking away until she released him, revenge taken.

The two of them moved off through the woods quickly after that, with Yang giving a few suggestions here and there, though more often than not warning Ranma how some areas had too many traps and he should tone them down. After that they moved back to outside the dorms, where they squared off at against one another for a short spar, having spent more than an hour into the woods.

Though she didn't win, Yang could tell she was making progress. She was becoming much more fluid, much less predictable in her upper body strikes, working in kicks now almost but not quite naturally enough to fool someone, especially someone like Ranma. Still, it was a great exercise.

By the time they finished and turned back to their dorm hall the rest of the school were waking up with several dozen older students up and moving through and outside the dorms as they did. Yang noticed as they entered the freshman dorms that several of the older students looked at Ranma with sneers or irritation, but what that was about Yang didn't know.

She was going to say something but Ranma paused, cocking his head as he stared at a team that had just come out of the sophomore class' dorms. They looked at him, irritation and something like a challenge in their eyes.

Then that smirk, the one that set her pulse to racing, appeared on his face as he looked at them. The effect on the four other teens, all men were to change their considering irritation with him into glares, but they also turned away, moving along the walk path. Ranma snorted, and they went on their way.

Moments later Ranma swiped his key card through his dorm room's security, and was about to open the door to let Yang in when he slammed it shut his eyes wide. _Crap! I forgot about Neo!_

"What are you doing Ranma?" Yang asked, reaching past him to open the door only to find Ranma keeping a close with difficult they.

"Nothing! It's just… um… yeah! My rooms messy, ya don't want to go in there right now!" Ranma panicked, having not only remembered Neo had slept over, but that she had been sleeping in just a bra and panties when he left that morning. Somehow, he didn't think Yang would be very happy to see that, even if they weren't in an actual relationship.

Unfortunately for Ranma, the slamming of the door and his and Yang's voices had woken Neo up. Angry at the presumption of someone daring to wake up Neo chose to show her displeasure by hurling a knife at the door.

The knife slammed into and almost through the door, the tip of it appearing out the other side at about head height and just to the side of where Ranma had put his back against the door. Yang stared at it then it Ranma's panicked expression. "Ranma, do you have someone in there?"

"No! Why would you think that!?" Ranma squeaked, trying not to let his eyes stray to the metal point a few inches away from his cheek.

Yang looked at him through narrowed violet eyes then shook her head dismissively turning away. "Whatever, I'll just go use my dorm room's shower instead."

Ranma was about to breathe a sigh of relief when her fist connected with his chest. Slamming him back into his door, the impact took it off its hinges throwing both door and Ranma into his room.

"That better not be one of those damn hussies from Hei Days!" Yang growled as she came through only to stop, calming down only slightly as Neo glared at her from the large bean bag in front of the TV, one visible and seemingly naked leg poking out from under a light cover. "Who the hell are you chibi?"

Neo glared at the blonde, recognizing her from a story the twins had told her a few days ago, but dismissing her as a threat. She glared at Ranma, then gestured them both out the door, making neck wringing motions with her one visible hand before burrowing down deeper into the comfortable beanbag, and blanket scowling angrily. Attacking either of them was frankly too much trouble right now.

"Neo's a friend," Ranma said with a shrug, missing how one of Neo's eyes opened again to look at him, a faint smile appearing on her face before she once more burrowed into the beanbag. "She decided to crash here last night, and just didn't leave."

"And the reason why you didn't just say that?" Yang said, her hands on her hips as she glared at him.

"Because I figured you'd react exactly the way you did," Ranma said blithely, grunting as he got to his feet and pulled the door out from under him. It thankfully was still in one piece, though the hinges would have to be replaced.

"Oh." Yang muttered, having the decency to actually look a little sheepish. But then her eyes narrowed again. "She didn't use any of the shampoo I left here did she?"

"No she didn't use any of your girlie shampoo," Ranma replied, moving towards the doorway. "You'd better get a move on though, I don't want any of your teammates to follow your example and break my door down looking for you 'cause you're late for breakfast."

"Yeah sorry about that," Yang said, though she really wasn't. The idea that Ranma might've had another woman in here had made her blood boil, and despite years of anger management classes, when Yang's blood boiled, it **burned**. Part of that was her Semblance, but part of it was a temper she came by from her father.

She smirked suddenly, moving towards Ranma, draping herself on his back before running her hands down his chest. "Would it help if I gave you a kiss to make it all better?"

Ranma stuttered, blushing and nearly dropping the door again, but Yang laughed, moving away before sauntering towards the bath bathroom. Neo had popped open an eye again, and she and Yang exchanged a smirk at Ranma's reaction, before the other girl buried once again into the beanbag and Yang entered the bathroom.

Looking back at her, Ranma tried to fight down his blush, shaking his head. "Women…"

 **OOOOOOO**

Pyrrha sighed as a loud bang echoed throughout the dorm room, waking her up with all the effect of a dozen coffees. She pushed out of her bead before she fully came awake, before she sighed as her mind placed the sound, sitting back down. "Would it be wrong of me to assume that was Yang?"

"Nope," Jaune said, looking up from where he and Ren were going over some notes they made in their class on Dust and its uses. "Not with her getting up every morning to spar with Ranma." He smirked, shaking his head. "Enough of that madman's training would try a saint, and Yang is…"

He trailed off, trying to come up with a way to describe his fellow blond that wouldn't bite him in the ass if it ever reached her ears. Ren stepped in calmly, his lips twitching. "Almost as explosive in personality as her weapons are against her enemies?"

"That works," Jaune replied as Pyrrha giggled, shaking her head at the two boys. It wasn't so much that they set out to be funny, but putting them together with the antics of the rest of their small group made for quite a few hilarious, if snarky moments.

Her giggles became laughter as Nora popped out of the bathroom, pulling both boys into chokeholds. "Come on, let's go see what's going on!"

Nora led the way out of the dorm room toward Ranma's room, where they found the rest of the freshman having gathered. Beside Nora, Blake frowned as she saw Cardin and his team, looking oddly the worse for wear for just having gotten up, but put it out of her mind as she saw the door to Ranma's room somewhat broken around the edges and with a note tacked to it.

Weiss read it aloud, frowning. "'Yang moment, don't worry about it. Instead suggest you get a big meal at lunch and breakfast. You'll need the energy.' Did anyone else feel a shiver down their spine just then?"

"Hmmm," Pyrrha murmured as more than one of the freshmen around them looked at one another in worry. But Pyrrha's eyes had instead lit up at the challenge inherent in Ranma's words. "That sounds interesting. I think we should all take that advice to heart, shall we go?"

Weiss wanted to wait for Yang to come out, more to make certain that nothing untoward had happened between her and their teacher than anything else. But she was overruled, her friends moving away swiftly to hopefully beat the crowd to breakfast. The rest of the freshman followed, debating what Ranma had in store for them.

Thus no one saw Neo pop out of the room, shaking her head as she looked around for Ranma. _Last night was fun. Not informative by any means, but fun. We'll have to do this again soon._ With that she disappeared from sight.

 **OOOOOOO**

Cardin Winchester was not having as much fun here in Beacon as he had hoped. For one thing, Cardin had thought he would be the big man in the freshman class. Oh, not because of his family's money or anything like that, Cardin knew this place was a Hunter's school, so such things didn't matter here even if half of the weapons the Hunters used were made from metal from his family's factories. No, he had thought his strength, skills and amount of Aura would have been enough to see him in the top dog positions.

But they weren't. Instead his skills put him directly in the middle of the pack. Worse, they weren't even enough to attract the attention of the babes, the best looking of whom were the best fighters in the grade by a ridiculous margin. Yang and Pyrrha were top of the pack in practically every category, and the only ones close to even compete with them were their friends, with the fifteen year old Ruby being the best of the others. Which was somewhat humiliating to Cardin to even think about.

And they all hung around with two boys who looked as if they should be prime bullying material, but weren't for different reasons. The black haired whipped one who hung out with the crazy ass hammer chick was slick, faster and better at slipping out of his attempts to intimidate him than Cardin would have believed. And Jaune was actually a lot tougher than he looked, and the amount of Aura the blonde-boy had was just obscene.

So Cardin had broadened his horizons, going for the Faunus as easy targets. He was aided in this choice by a personal hatred that burned in him every time he saw one of the two-legged animals. It had been a year now and he'd still not gotten over his girlfriend and old Nicholas, the servant who had watched over him more than any member of his own family, dying as they had in a White Fang attack. To Cardin Winchester, any of those animals should have been easy prey, and no human should even have thought about sticking up for them.

That went wrong immediately thanks to Benzaiten, the hotty redheaded teacher with the scary voice and Jaune's standing up to him, and continued to go wrong in the days following. The first Cardin knew of his change of fortune happened later that very day:

 **Flashback:**

Cardin grunted as he kicked in the door to his teams dorm room, scowling angrily at how the day had gone. "Now we're the freaking laughing stocks of the school thanks to those bitches and Jauney! We're gonna have to get some of our own… who the hell are you?!"

The last words were addressed to a slightly older teen sitting in a meditation pose on his bed. He had copper-colored skin, white eyes, ears that almost made him look like a Faunus along with a series of nasty scars covering his forearms and the visible parts of his neck. He didn't respond verbally to Cardin, instead standing up fluidly, looking at Cardin and behind him to where his three teammates had piled up behind Cardin's bulk.

"I saiGAAH!" Cardin's voice ended in a croak.

One moment the older teen had been getting up from Cardin's bed, the next he was in Cardin's face, his hand flashing out to chop into Cardin's larynx. Cardin went down, gagging then found himself smashed aside into his room by a palm strike to the jaw that had his head spinning. Even as his Aura worked to offset the damage he felt the older teen's fists tap his chest, and a pulse of **something** pounded against his Aura which disappeared for just a second. In that second, the teen's hand reached out again tapping Cardin's throat.

The message was clear: if the older teen had wanted, Cardin would be dead right now.

Behind Cardin, Sky, Russel and Dove were only just beginning to react to the sudden assault on their leader, but the older boy stood back, glaring at them with his white, pupil-less eyes and they froze, like so many mice in front of a snake. He removed his hand from Cardin's throat and, still not saying a word, patted the large teen on the shoulder before walking out the dorm room, RDL making way for him fearfully.

As Cardin recovered, he glared at them, but they could only shrug. "What, what the heck was that about!?"

 **End Flashback.**

Cardin learned what it was later that day when the girl named Coco Adel made her first appearance by nearly bashing Russel's head in with her bag, a bag she lifted easily but which struck like Nora's freaking hammer. Over the next few days she was there, making certain that CRDL knew how displeased she was with the very idea of anyone bothering 'Her precious Velvet cake'.

Nor was she alone in this, the last member of team CFVY got in on the act too. The large freshman tried not to shudder at the memory of Yatsuhashi and his 'discussion' with Cardin and his team.

Cardin was used to being the largest and strongest person in the room, and wasn't yet used to the idea of there being people stronger than him, but he could understand it they were using semblances to do it. Yang and Nora were both physically stronger than him after all.

Yet Yatsuhashi didn't use a Semblance to enhance his strength, he was simply stronger and faster, something Cardin would never have believed possible until coming here. He was also taller and wider than Cardin, and when Cardin had punched him, Yatsuhashi had simply taken it like rock taking a blow from a child. That was damn scary to Cardin.

But for all his bullying ways and laziness, Cardin wasn't stupid. So that Thursday morning, when Russel and Sky started talking about ways to possibly get back at Velvet for sic'ing her teammates on them he shook his head and said nothing. When their discussion turned to the girls in the freshman class, who was hottest and how to get in their pants he exchanged a glance with Dove and pushed away from the table quickly, eager to not get involved in this new madness.

The two talkers looked up and he shook his head at them. "You want to waste your time like that, fine, but count me out. We've got Saotome's class later today, and I don't know about you, but I bet it'll be tough as hell."

He scowled then as he caught sight of one of the freshman Faunus, a young man with deer-like horns sticking out of his forehead. He couldn't help it, he just couldn't, not when he saw those freaks. Still, Cardin kept his mouth shut and kept going. His hatred of Faunus was very real, very personal and wasn't going away anytime soon, but he had other things on his mind right now.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma was gone most of the morning working on finishing up the obstacle course working with Port to add bits and pieces here to simulate different terrain and Grimm attacks. This last was a little harder, but with a few pictures, rope and other things, he was able to set up sections of the course to look like ambushes or areas where large numbers of Grimm were, which would in turn force the kids to make the choice to fight through them or move even more silently than before.

Of course that wasn't all, Ranma had sort of lied to Yang about the purpose of this course, Tacticus had helped him see it could be used for a lot more than that. What would be the point of training the teens in their teams where they would naturally cover one another's weaknesses? That was all well and good, but what would happen in the field if they couldn't do that for some reason?

No, like Tacticus had said, better to help them build on their weaknesses as well as their strengths, to make them more flexible in the field. Ranma saw this as simply an extension of forcing them all to learn how to fight hand to hand, so they could survive in any given situation. That was why he had several heavy packs of rocks ready and waiting to one side of the entrance to the obstacle course.

"You have finished setting up your obstacle course I take it?" Ozpin said from behind Ranma as he and Port entered the main school building. "How goes it?"

"Oh it's marvelous!" Port said ecstatically. "It's a little lacking in realism in terms of Grimm but I believe the students will get a kick out of it, and learn quite a bit. Indeed, the only thing that would make it better would be to include actual Grimm! But I'm afraid that they've tried to get in our way out there too often, so there's probably not many of them left in the forest at the moment." Port laughed boisterously, slapping Ranma on the back with a smack that would have downed an Ursa, but which only served to rattle Ranma slightly as he grinned at the older man.

Ozpin's lips twitched at that, though into a smile or frown, Ranma couldn't tell. "Do you need anything else to finish the project? Your class is this afternoon after all."

"Only something for them to retrieve from the far end," Ranma said with a shrug.

"The chess set we used during initiation is still in the teachers' lounge, you could use those if you wish."

Ranma nodded, and the three of them moved through the halls with Ozpin questioning the two others closely on the nature of the obstacle course. He wanted to make certain that none of the students would be injured permanently, since that would interfere with next week's trip to Forever Fall, which Ranma was just as enthusiastic about as his obstacle course, and the paperwork of which Ozpin had already completed, sending out permission forms to the students.

There was something else bothering him as well. "Are you sure you're not going too quickly for the students?"

"If I was going to send them all out as just their teams with no supervision sure." Ranma said with a nod. "But since I'll be there along with Tacticus and Beni, I don't see a problem with it."

"I hadn't realized Tacticus had agreed to go with you, I apologize then. Three teachers are far better than one after all," Ozpin replied, rather amused. Tacticus was a recluse among the teachers, preferring to ignore the rest of the school in favor of simply teaching his courses, which were beginning tactics and Criminal Law, the first being his profession and the second his passion.

At that point they arrived at the teachers' lounge, and Ranma entered quickly, picking up the chess sets and placing them in a large bag.

"Do you play chess Ranma?" Ozpin asked suddenly. He wondered what style of chess a player as chaotic as Ranma could play. It would be a most interesting exercise for certain.

"Not really," Ranma said with a shrug. "I've played shogi a few times, but that's all." He smirked, remembering that combat shogi incident, yet another time his father's issues came home to roost, but one of the more amusing times it had to be said.

"A pity. I could teach you if you so wish."

Ranma shrugged, hefting the bag over one shoulder before smiling at the other two teachers. "No thanks, I'd rather concentrate on my physical skills. After all, there's about as much of a connection between chess and real combat as there is between roses and a wall."

"I'm sorry," Ozpin said blinking behind his glasses. "I think you messed up that metaphor a bit. There is no connection between a wall and arose unless of course it's a climbing rose."

"Exactly," Ranma said as he walked past the doorway. "There is no connection at all."

Ozpin stared after him thoughtfully, a faint smile on his face as he shook his head. "Such an odd young man."

"But a good one," Port, said grinning at his old friend and clapping him on the shoulder. "A very good one, and one who is almost as straightforward as I am."

"This does not fill me with confidence," Ozpin chuckled, smiling at his old friend before heading back to his office to do battle with the dreaded paperwork once more, his thoughts on the young man, his startlingly blue eyes, and the school's newest, if most secret, guest. _I wonder…_

 **OOOOOOO**

As her patron outlined her plan, Cinder frowned slightly. " _Can we afford this? If it goes wrong we'll lose a lot of forces in that area."_

" _ **My dear, dear Queen, I have pieces aplenty. Humanity has no idea of the numbers I can bring to bear. Let them get a glimpse of it now, let that fear have time to rise even higher in Vale and Beacon. And when they lose some of their most powerful defenders, the way to what we believe is now within Ozpin's school will be all the easier."**_ The voice in Cinder's head replied, thrumming in her skull with a sort of dark anticipation and glee.

The tone of it was enough to make Cinder shiver, but she had known for years what sort of power she had allied herself with, and the end game was all that mattered. To that end Cinder frowned, thinking how to use her mistress's anger towards the Azure Warden for her own part of this war.

Mercury and Emerald were still in Mistral, and she couldn't trust Roman or Neo but… " _Mistress, I could also see to sneaking into Beacon_ now. _If the attack is slow enough for the teachers to be called away to deal with it, that might give me a free run against the Autumn Maiden again."_

Her patron was silent for a moment, then replied in the affirmative. **"** _ **A good idea, if you can arrange it. Remember, there must not be any connection between you and I, none, and your anonymity is your greatest asset."**_

" _I will see to it mistress."_ Cinder replied, then felt the connection end and slumped forward once more, her head leaning against the bed once more. _Now, how best to go about this?_

 **OOOOOOO**

After dropping off the chess sets in his room Ranma went to get some lunch in the cafeteria. Smiling at the students who greeted him while ignoring with carefully studied insolent insouciance the glares and looks of consideration he got from the older students he sat at the teacher's table alongside Beni and Glynda, who were talking about a few of the freshman by what he overheard as he sat down.

They both smiled at him, and he nodded at the two of them, cocking his head at Glynda. "Problems with the kiddies?"

"You mean besides the fact that Ms. Xiao Long apparently broke your door down and you didn't punish her for it?" Glynda asked archly. "That rumor took all of an hour to make the rounds around campus."

Ranma cocked his head, not understanding and she sighed. "Of course, I should have expected that. Ranma, we can't just let any of the students get away with damaging school property like that. I don't care about the reasons, which I imagine were much less salacious than rumor makes them…" She trailed off, glaring at Ranma.

"Yeah it was nothing!" Ranma replied, gulping under that glare. Give him a fight any day, the glares of the women around here were just damn scary sometimes. "Er, she just overreacted is all, and besides the damage wasn't much, I can repair it easily."

"That is not the point, as I just said. It sets a bed precedent." Glynda sighed, shaking her head. "I'll deal with her later I suppose. Perhaps some service around the campus to fix broken or damaged training areas? Yes, that punishment would fit the crime well enough."

"Okay, whatever. What were you talking about before talking about Yang going all Yang on my door?" Ranma asked, thankful Glynda hadn't decided to punish him in turn, despite him being a teacher he knew she could do that and get away with it.

Glynda and Beni exchanged a glance and then Beni spoke up, answering Ranma's question with a question. "Did you notice any partnerships in Sifu's class yesterday that were not playing well with one another?"

When Ranma nodded she went on grimly. "Well it turns out that Terrence Fig and Lucinda Brown have had a major falling out. Sifu and I talked to them both separately and together yesterday, and we have been forced to expel Terrence this morning for act's unbecoming of a student at Beacon."

She watched Ranma's eyes narrow in speculation and shook her head quickly. "No, nothing that bad, with Aura and two other people in the room abuse like that is impossible. But that doesn't mean he didn't try to press his suit further than he should have, and more than once, and their behavior toward one another is on the far side of acrimonious now. We've taken the time to send a copy of our notes and the allegations to the police. It'll be up to them if they warrant criminal charges."

"Terrence, tallish guy, built like a twig? And Lucinda… um tomboyish right, normal girl sized with twin ponytails, makes her look like a Sailor Moon otaku? Teammates are Greg Apple and Nova Blue, and they were all among your lot yesterday?" Ranma asked, after a second struggling to bring them to mind.

Beni nodded, ignoring Glynda's blank look at the term Sailor Moon for the moment. That particular anime/manga had no Remnant equivalent, which Beni was frankly thankful for. "That's right. They are decent students, not in the top of the grade but not bottom feeders either. But unfortunately if we expel Terrence that makes their team uneven."

"Which is why Beni and I have been going over our notes before taking them up to Ozpin. It's an irritating fact, but the rules are clear: if one person is expelled from a team, the others will be held back until a replacement arrives. If we had an uneven number of students pass initiation this year we could simply send out a report to one of those who passed and tell him or her that their chance had come up quicker than we had thought to attend Beacon, but that was not the case." Glynda sighed sadly

Ranma frowned, looking at them askance. "Is Ozzy going to try and block the expulsion for some reason?"

After glaring at Ranma ineffectually for his lack of prosperity toward the headmaster, scary she might be, but Ranma refused to give respect to positions, only people, Glynda shook her head. "No, but expelling the student in question is the headmasters responsibility and will make quite a bit of paperwork for him too which is something he is always reluctant about regardless of the offence."

"Threaten to cut off the man's coffee until he gets it done." Beni suggested which won a laugh form her brother and a faint smile from Glynda.

They were interrupted at that point by a huge binder being slammed down on the table between them. "Ranma, hi!" Ruby chirped as she looked over the massive binder at the three teachers. None of the other teachers were currently present, Port being down in Vale for some kind of function today and Oobleck and others having a class with the juniors during this lunch period.

"Hey Little Red, um, what's with the massive binder?" Ranma asked.

"Heheh, well you know how you asked me to look into a weapon for you? Well these are my initial ideas."

Behind Ruby a voice Ranma recognized as Weiss' shouted out, "Is that my history binder!?"

Ruby quickly turned away, flashing her fingers up in a peace sign. "I am not a crook!" Then she whirled backwards, smiling happily at Ranma. "So I was thinking that we could go over them today and I could get to work on actually making the weapon we choose this weekend."

Glynda pushed up her glasses with one hand as she cocked an eyebrow looking at the massive binder which seemed to be filled to bursting with loose pieces of paper. Flipping it open she looked at the designs on the first page, her eyebrows rising up to her hair line in surprised admiration. _While I still may question Ozpin's decision to let her in based on her maturity and overall scholastic level, I cannot doubt that Ms. Rose has a flair for hunting, which seems to carry over into weapons._

"This is most impressive," she muttered, looking from one design to another. "Very impressive Ms. Rose."

"How in the world did you have enough time to work on all of these?" Beni asked leaning over the table to look at the designs along with Glynda as Ranma did the same.

Ruby squeaked, looking away and Glynda looked up, sighing faintly as she shook her head. "Please see to it that your actual schoolwork does not suffer because of your hobby Ms. Rose." Coming from her that was an extremely mild rebuke, the designs Ruby had produced were that impressive.

"Ye-yes Ma'am." Ruby replied hunching her shoulders before perking up as she looked over at Ranma. "I even have them cross-indexed by gun type and close-combat weapon type."

Glynda would have made a comment about wanting to see that level of organization in the rest of her work, but she was too engrossed with looking over a few more of the designs. Ranma did the same, laying the ones that caught his eye out as Yang and a few other students moved over to look at what was going on.

By the end of that discussion Ruby had gained a lot more respect than the pint-sized reaper had before with her peers thanks only to her skills as a Huntress. As impressive as those were, her skill as a weapon-smith was just as impressive. She even had a few offers to pay her to work on a few weapons for other freshman, and even two sophomores.

Many Hunters could maintain, modify or repair their weapons in the field, it was frankly a must and one of the classes here at Beacon was based around teaching those skills. But coming up with unique, workable and above all usable designs was something else altogether.

For his part Ranma chose two weapons designs to look over.

One was a power lance design, a heavy lance accompanied with a small flange, the bit of the metal lance that worked back to cover the users hand and arm, a small fire dust amplifier built into its base. The flange could fold down and the tip open up to transform the lance into a rifle, which could be set to single shot or rapid fire.

The second design was based around gauntlets much like Ember Celica, but instead of being a bracelet which morphed into gauntlets with a shotgun shell added to it, these were slightly simpler in design, not having any kind of morphing function. They were thin gauntlets, or as Ranma called them cestus, simple weapons in form. But added to this was a twin barreled submachine gun function resembling that of Lotus Flower, Ren's weapons. The other function added to the cestus was an electrical dust battery added to it, causing arcs of electricity to ripple from finger to finger.

The moment Nora had seen that, she begged on hand and knees for Ruby to make something like that for her. The two had wandered off after lunch to discuss that further, though the horrified look Ren had when he went to look for them did not make any of the three teachers happy with the prospect of Nora having such a weapon.

Ranma however had his class to teach that afternoon so had no time to waste on such long term concerns.

The class again started off with a run, with Ranma pushing the entire class around the campus, with Beni making time beside him. Glynda was not there, in deep discussion with Ozpin while also not falling for his pleas to help him with the paperwork he needed to expel Terrence.

Running with Beni at the head of the column Ranma smirked as they finished the first lap, reaching out to tap her on the shoulder. "Now it's time to up the ante a bit." With that he put on more speed, racing ahead of the freshman easily as Beni laughed.

She turned her head and shouted, "I would not let Ranma pass you more than once if I were you!" With that she sped up her own pace

Giggling behind one hand Pyrrha told her team about the time she and Ranma had run into one another in the park, and they all wordlessly sped up beside her. Even if they would just be the butt of that particular prank, that was enough. Even Weiss, heels and all tried to keep up, though her endurance was frankly pathetic.

Running along next to Pyrrha, Yang cocked her head thoughtfully even as she kept pace with the Mistrali champion. "I wonder if it'll just be a gag though, didn't he say something about upping the ante to Beni?"

"He did, though I have no idea what it could be." Pyrrha replied, just as Ranma came up behind the column, passing most of them easily though Beni began to match his pace now, not letting him past her. Pyrrha had to stop herself from racing ahead to join them, the need to stay with her team overcoming her competitive streak.

Yang looked at her team, shaking her head. "And we've got what, seven more laps around the campus to go?" Decision made, she fell back into the column deliberately, putting herself behind Ruby and Weiss.

When the two height-challenged members of Team RWBY began to flag after the fourth lap, she was there, lifting first Weiss than Ruby onto her back. This only took a second and then Yang caught up with the other frontrunners, seemingly not even noticing the weight.

"Yaaannnng, I can handle myself!" Ruby muttered, though she was gasping, her tongue lolling out as she said it. She just wasn't built for endurance like this, speed was her thing not keeping on going like this. _If he would only let me use my Semblance I would be done with enough time to pick up another cookie from the cafeteria, but noooo, he has to have that no Semblance rule. Stupid Ranma, hmppff, that cloth-weapon technique better be worth it._

"Thi, this is most undignified Yang, put me down at once!" Weiss growled from where she was being carried on Yang's other shoulder.

"I don't see you actually hopping off my back princess! Just hush up, this is part of being a team." Yang replied. "We don't have Xiao Long to go anyway." Her passengers groaned aloud at Yang, causing her to laugh as she kept on going tirelessly.

Beside them Blake kept going, her own speed flagging as they hit the sixth lap around campus, but still able to keep on going. On Yang's other side Nora emulated Yang, picking the flagging Ren up onto her back easily racing on as Jaune and Pyrrha paced their teammates. Though he was lacking in speed, Jaune more than made up for it in endurance and was just as certain as Yang was that he really didn't want to be among those Ranma lapped a second time.

Narrowing his eyes behind them, Cardin looked at his own flagging teammates and sighed before deciding to go with it. "If either of you fall I'll carry you the rest of the way, but you better really freaking collapse, you get me?" His teammates all grunted agreement, too busy using their air for actually running to respond further.

By the end of the run Ranma had passed by about a third of the freshman class more than once. After having a brief cooldown walk to the start of the obstacle course, Ranma separated that group and their teammates, some of whom had not originally been among the teen's he'd passed, from the others.

"Alright, I said the first day you lot should start running to build up endurance and I stand by that word. I know it's only been a week, but I figure that with Aura you should already be showing some improvement."

He smirked at Yang and Nora and the few others who had decided to carry some of their teammates instead of letting them fall behind. "Now, I love the fact some of you realized that even an exercise like this can be a team exercise. Well done. For those who I passed however there needs to be some kind of penalty. So now you have a choice to make."

Ranma gestured at the packs of rocks next to him. "You can choose to either have a handicap for the rest of this class. These packs all contain about a hundred pounds worth of rock. Carrying them through the obstacle course behind me should serve well as punishment right?"

There was a chorus of groans and shouted imprecations at that, and more than one of the freshman looked as if they wanted to attack their teacher. But unlike the upper years, they knew how good Pyrrha was, and weren't willing to try their luck against the teacher who had beaten the Invincible Girl.

"Or you could choose the second option." Ranma waited a few moments as they all chorused the second option sounded better save for two girls, who looked as if they realized they were being set up. He subtly (well subtly for Ranma) winked in their direction causing both to blush and look away while Yang growled, clenching her fists.

But when Ranma spoke, he was all business. "Instead you will take your weapons and jog slowly around the campus, clanking them together and repeating, "I am a slow…" Ranma paused as a feeling of utter dread and terror came toward him not only from his sister but from Yang as she glared at him and then glanced to her innocent sister. Hastily correcting his words he went on. "sack of… stupidity! I want to kill my buddies."

At those words the entire freshman class, many of whom had been smirking at their classmates' misery gaped and Ranma's smile slid of his face, his blue eyes hardening. "This…is…not…a… game." He went on, emphasizing the words. "It can be fun, it can be rewarding, but never forget that the Grimm have no pity, they have no remorse, and that Aura cannot solve all our problems! We, me and your other teachers, are teaching you how to survive, as teams and alone. Your skills and ability have an impact beyond your own lives, remember that."

He fell silent then, gesturing to the packs beside him, and after only a few moments hesitation the first of the students moved to pick up a pack and rejoin the rest of the class.

 **OOOOOOO**

Pyrrha chuckled to herself, stretching her arms over her head, cracking her neck from side to side to work out a few kinks, ignoring her general muddy, dirty clothing for now. Nora and Ren walked next to her, with Jaune right behind bringing up the rear despite the four of them having already exited the obstacle course. All of them were mud-splattered but Nora was decked out in it from head to toe, as was Jaune, though he had made an attempt to clean himself off. Nora had not, taking a childish glee in in getting muddy.

Turning quickly to look at their team leader, Pyrrha smiled happily, bring her arms behind her back for a moment. "That was fun! And a most interesting learning experience."

"Yep, although it wouldn't have been so fun if we had to keep going another few times." Jaune replied shaking his head.

That won some grimaces from Ren, but Nora simply cackled gleefully and Pyrrha took it in stride. She was dirty, muddy, splattered with paint, sore in places, her hair was undone from her normal careful ponytail, and her limbs felt like lead. And Pyrrha loved it. That exercise had been one of the most challenging things she'd ever done, and she had done it with her team right beside her, which made it even better in her opinion.

Ranma had split the freshman teams into four groups, lining each of them up in front of a different entrance to an obstacle course. Then he had explained the objectives to them, before calling out to the team leaders to explain to the rest how they would move through unknown terrain. Pyrrha was proud to say that Jaune had been the first to come up with a basic plan, outlining the four different positions the team members would have to take in order to guard one another and make progress.

"Exactly, and I trust all of you to have either figured out or be able to see the position each of you would be most suitable for." Ranma had said, before smirking.

No one there had realized that the smirk hadn't been directed at them, rather inward. After all, Ranma had never been a part of a team, he'd learned most of his woodcraft from his father. And the skills he'd used to stay hidden without leaving a trail he'd first learned while trying to get away from angry restaurant owners chasing him and his old man down for eating them out of business. He later perfected the skills when he was on the run from Shampoo and her Kiss of Death.

"However this exercise is not just supposed to let you work out with what you can already do well, but teach you new skills. Therefore with each successive run through you will change positions in the column."

"Wait, that doesn't work!" Ruby interjected, holding up a hand. "What about those of us whose jobs are partially chosen by our weapons?"

"Then you switch weapons too." Ranma replied shrugging.

Weiss and Ruby both shouted as one at that, as did many others, though the two pintsize freshmen were both the most vocal and articulate. "No barbarian's going to lay a hand on Myrtenaster/No one's touching my baby!"

For her part Pyrrha had been a bit worried about that idea, but not overmuch since she trusted her teammates to look after her weapons properly if it came to that. And she also felt a trifle interested, though she would deny it if asked, about what wielding Magnhild might be like. She caught Nora's looking toward her own weapons and the two girls exchanged a high five, not noticing their partners sighing in unison.

Ranma let the younger teens get it out of their system, then looked over at the other teacher, who had yet to be introduced, who shook his head. Then Ranma began to explain why he wanted them to train with one another's weapons, that in the field sometimes you could be surprised in camp, your weapon could jam, a teammate could be injured, etc, all things that would force teams to cross-train on one another's weapons or in one another's skills. Blake in particular looked a little irritated by all this, but none of them could argue his points and the exercises began.

What followed was embarrassing for many, but altogether fun for the entire class, as well as, like Pyrrha had said, an excellent learning experience. The only traps that really could hurt were a few wooden traps, blunt spears that occasionally came out of nowhere to either trip up someone, or thrust toward them like claws coming out of hiding spaces. The rest were paint, mud, rope and other sort of traps, which the teams were forced to either spot or go around.

This was made all the more difficult when Ranma would suddenly pop up out of nowhere, and shout out, "so and so has fallen into a ditch, and sprained his or her ankle! You're going to have to carry him/her."

Another thing Ranma, Beni and the teacher, whose name was Tacticus, would be to turn up suddenly and shout out "Ahh, sudden attack by Grimm," just as fake Grimm masks appeared all around. "How would you get out of this quietly and silently? You have 10 seconds."

Needless to say several of the leaders could not quite come up with a plan that quickly. Jaune, to Pyrrha's great pride, had done so, and done so very well. Apparently Ruby hadn't done as well the first few times, but after the fifth time her team had been forced to restart their run, she had come up with several different scenarios, each of which would've worked.

Other sections of the obstacle course were marked off as silent, if the team made a noise they were forced to go back to start. At first a few teams, notably CDNL had thought there was no way the teachers could figure out if they did. But they quickly learned there was always a teacher nearby whenever a team was entering one of those sections.

"Yo team Juniper! You lot're the first through, well done!" Ranma called, having taken a break from being out in the actual forest to instead use his scroll to watch a few of the teams while Oobleck, who Tacticus had called in. He'd told his friend it was damn fun, and Oobleck, after a few moments spent moving after the various teams, had to agree.

Pyrrha moved over in front of Ranma, holding out the chess piece they had taken in this last run, a bishop this time. "Here you are Professor Saotome," she said smirking at him as he rolled his eyes at her, knowing he didn't like being called that. "Objective secure."

Setting Ren on the ground Jaune turned to look at his older friend. "Are we really the first ones to finish all four runs?"

"Yep, though honestly I didn't expect any teams to be able to complete all four courses today. Still, you migth've taken a long time on that third run, but you finished it without needing to restart." That was the run Nora had taken scout position for. "And in total you only failed six times, which is the least of any team so far. Team RWBY just had to go back in for their third attempt on number four. I'm afraid that Weiss as scout seems to be causing issues."

"They should've gotten her turn at that out of the way immediately after their first run through." Ranma looked at Jaune, who nodded, understanding that Ranma was saying they should have done the same with Nora. She was a lot more observant than most would give the orange haired girl credit for but none of team Juniper had much woodcraft. Spotting the traps was one thing, doing anything about them another, and as for moving silently, that had been a nightmare even if none of them made noises when they moved normally.

"Oh dear, that will probably take them quite a while to get right," Pyrrha said, shaking her head sadly.

"Meh, It'll help her learn anyway." Ranma said with a shrug gesturing them to sit down as he pulled a large bag of some kind out from one of his sleeves. In the bag were several energy bars and bags of trail mix. "Snacks?"

Pyrrha gratefully grabbed a small bag of trail mix, humming appreciatively as she poured some of it into her mouth, the tiny bits of chocolate and cinnamon granola hitting the spot after the exercise they'd just had. "Thank you professor."

"What've I said about calling me Ranma?" Ranma asked, nodding his head as the others took some more of the trail mix save for Ren who opted for an energy bar instead. "So what did you think of the exercise?"

"I thought it was one of the hardest things I've ever done!" Nora said, throwing her arms up over her head dramatically. "Why do we have to be so quiet in those sections, and what was up with all the times you and the other teachers appeared, telling us that one of us was hurt or other stuff like that!? I still don't think that Aura can be overcome like that."

Ranma laughed, tapping the scar on his face as he looked at Pyrrha. "My face wants ta disagree with ya."

As Pyrrha flushed at that, he sat down next to Pyrrha and Jaune. The blonde had slumped to the ground next to Ren, pulling out a water bottle from a small hip pack and handing it over to the other boy who took it gratefully. Of the four of them Ren had the least amount of endurance, and the obstacle course on top of the run and climbing down the cliff had pushed him to the point of collapse. Indeed, they'd had to stop at the end of each course to let Ren rest, and looking at his teammate Jaune knew Nora would be carrying him up the cliff when they were dismissed.

"Never underestimate how many silly ass ways there are ta hurt yourselves in the field." Ranma went on seriously, tapping his knee and ankle. "If you put a foot wrong, you can seriously hurt yourself, and Aura won't do anything to overcome physics. Best to get you all thinking about that kind of thing now, just like Glynda is always telling ya."

His listeners blanched somewhat, hearing a person so close to their own age calling the scariest teacher in Beacon by her first name even if he was a professor himself. But Ranma didn't notice, instead going on. "If one of you is injured like that and you don't know what to do, you panic, and the injured person feels pain of course, and pain can all too easily become fear. And fear will bring in Grimm."

Ranma looked off into the distance, shaking his head slowly. "I've been out beyond the kingdom's borders you know. I've seen the numbers of Grimm out there. Heck even within the borders of the various kingdoms there are thousands of Grimm, areas where you just can't go. Moving silently, controlling your emotions and leaving no trial, is sometimes the only way to get out alive."

"There are places like that in Mistral too. It always makes me wonder why people are calling this an age of peace. Just because humans aren't warring against one another doesn't mean it's an age of peace, not with the Grimm always out there." Pyrrha replied, nodding seriously. "I've seen old cities and towns overcome with Grimm, where men go rarely and never for long. Stealth in those circumstances is a must."

"Boo…" Nora muttered, but didn't argue further as Ren reached out to touch her shoulder gently.

"So Mistral has ruins like that too? What's the country like over there anyway?" Ranma asked.

Pyrrha hummed thoughtfully for a moment, smiling fondly as she thought of her home country and one home inside it in particular. "Hmm, well Mistral is a land of valleys and high mountains. The valleys are connected by a single river, the Mi'strach, which gives its name to the country. We only have one major city like Vale and Vacuo, though Harbor is rather smaller than either of them, and isn't quite as central to the life of the rest of the nation either. Each valley has its own name and looks after its own affairs, independent in many ways from the rest and separated by large guard bastions. It's a land of green, of olive trees, wines, and green. Everywhere in the valleys the land is so green, but a different sort of green than the forests here in Vale."

She didn't notice that her listeners had all leaned in, enchanted not just by her words but the tone of her voice as she spoke of her nation. "As you head up out of the valley along the sides, the green becomes darker, sparser, and there are these little fortified farmhouses up there, where people look after animals like sheep. The farmers all keep large guard dogs to help protect them against Grimm who make their way over the mountains into the valleys, but no Grimm can survive high up in the mountains, so they have to come through the various small gorges leading into the main valleys. But most of those have been found over the years and closed in various ways."

"The further up the Mi'strach you go, the less people there are, but the larger the farms become. Extended families farm the land, each protecting their homes in tandem with their neighbors. My pappous, my grandfather, owned a farm up there, and he always welcomed us with open arms and hearty meals of pasta, and bread. But it's not easy living by any means."

"I'd love to see Mistral sometime," Ranma said interrupting the silence that had overcome the five of them for a moment after Pyrrha finished speaking. "I don't really like what I've heard about Atlas' government or its society, but I'd still like to see what even that land's like. Mistral though sounds a lot more like my kind of place."

"I could show you around if you like," Pyrrha said with a smile. "It would be fun to see the country through new eyes."

Ranma nodded at that but Nora smirked. She was a lot more observant, especially about people, than most would give her credit for. She had seen a few glances Pyrrha sent Ranma's way, and she knew the girl might be as interested in him as Yang was, even if the redhead didn't realize it herself yet. "So, you're inviting Ranma home to meet the parents? That's bold of you Pyrrha."

"Wh, no! that's, no that's not what I meant at all!" Pyrrha shouted, blushing hotly and scooting away from the rest of the teens, her eyes wide as they moved from Nora to Ranma. it wasn't as if she didn't think Ranma was handsome or interesting or anything, but he was a professor, and she had never even flirted with a boy before.

For his part Ranma didn't understand what Nora was getting at, never having been a part of any kind of normal relationship and simply decided to ignore Nora's comments and Pyrrha's blush, which frankly made her look too cute for words in his opinion. "So Pyrrha, when do you want to meet up for training? I know yer not a morning person, so we could meet up at night? And do ya want to start with general training or like Rubes wants to go straight to seeing if you can use the Iron Cloth technique?"

Nora opened her mouth to tease Pyrrha further about spending extra time with their teacher, but Ren pinched her thigh lightly shaking his head and she subsided pouting at him.

Sending a grateful glance Ren's way, Pyrrha tried to get her blush under control. "Oh, um, I would like to start with general training, like what you do with Yang, starting tomorrow evening if we can. I agree that for Ruby the Iron Cloth technique would be a major addition to her repertoire, as it would be in mine."

She gestured down to her red sash, which she had wrapped around her thigh rather than let it flow freely behind her. "But I think the general improvement across the board would be better for me. I'll still call my Aunt Thetis about searching for some diamondium for you though."

"Speaking of Ruby…" Jaune said, speaking up for the first time since they had sat down, pointing toward the forest and waving his hand in the air.

The others turned to see Ruby leading her team across the open area, her and her older sister singing 'we are the champions' as they became the second team to finish all four runs on the first time going through. Following them came Tacticus, shaking his head at the youngster's exuberance while Weiss tried to ply him with questions and Blake smiled slightly walking silently beside her partner.

At the sight of the other teacher and the cat girl Ranma hopped to his feet. "Welp, I suppose it's my turn then, I'll see ya later guys."

The four of them watched as Ranma reentered the forest, moving silently and swiftly through the treetops at a speed that none of them could have managed. "Wow Ren, he's more of a ninja than you are!" Nora said, bumping shoulders with her old friend.

"I've never claimed to be a ninja," Ren said, then gestured suddenly towards the pink streak in his hair. "Especially not since this incident, it's awfully hard to sneak around when you have pink hair after all."

Nora pouted at him. "I've said I was sorry for that thousands of times Renny, let it go!"

"Do I want to know?" Jaune asked looking at his male friend, his only one of two male friends, and the other had just hopped off into the darkening woods like the Schnee bunny.

"Nora experimented quite a bit with Dust before coming up with those rounds she uses in her grenades. She wanted the explosions to, be 'pretty and pink'." Ren replied in his best deadpan, which was very good. "During her experiments she developed this neon pink Dust sludge, which somehow got into my hair during an… altercation with a girl named Nelly."

Jaune and Pyrrha scooted away slightly as Nora began to shake in place, growling angrily about a 'black-haired witch'. At their looks Ren shrugged. "They had a bit of a rivalry at our previous school. It got so bad that the school put a restraining order on them both to keep them away from one another."

"Oh dear," Jaune murmured, looking over at Nora who continued to vibrate in place muttering imprecations at this Nelly girl while team RWBY sat down with their friends. "You do watch her during our Dust Application class right?" He asked somewhat fearfully.

Jaune didn't share that class with them, instead having decided to take the Aura and Semblance usage class, hoping to figure out his Semblance. Most of the freshman had done the same except those who, like Ren, Nora and Pyrrha, knew their Semblance already.

 _Actually come to think of it, I'm the only one any of my friends that doesn't know his Semblance. Damn that's a drag,_ Jaune thought, shaking his head.

"Don't belittle yourself," Ruby said, punching him slightly hard on the shoulder. Jaune looked at her in shock and Ruby pouted, wagging a finger at him. "You spoke that last bit aloud."

"Oops," Jaune said, poking his fingers together. "But, I mean, you have to admit it is kind of sad that…"

"Don't!" Ruby said raising her little fist again.

Jaune shied away quickly and Pyrrha laughed. Even with Aura protecting you getting a hit on a bone like that stung, and she wondered if that was something that Ruby had learned from her sister. "Jaune, you have more Aura than anyone else in the freshman class, do not belittle yourself for not having a Semblance yet, I've seen some of your exercises with your Aura, they are quite amazing on their own. Finding your Semblance will come in time, don't worry about comparing yourself to the rest of us, simply grow at your own pace."

"Heh, um, well," Jaune looked away sheepishly, looking for some other topic. "Oh, have any of you ever fought in swampland or anything like that? With Ranma and even Professor Port talking about how terrain's important we might want to think about that kind of thing. I've fought in a desert, so I know how to do that, and rocky terrain, and we're learning here about fighting in the woods."

"That leaves swamps, marshlands, grassland, underground areas, in a city, ships, and in the water." Jaune listed, counting on his fingers as Pyrrha looked at him, her smile widening as Jaune's tactical mind came out. She had really found a good partner here in Beacon. "Anyone have any suggestions or experience in those?"

Ren, Nora and Yang had fought on grassy plains, and reported it as relatively simple, though you always had to be wary of being encircled, because there was literally no cover to use against the Grimm. "Worse there are several snake type Grimm and Grimm like Vale's Creepers that can move through the grass almost unseen. Even worse many of them hunt in packs."

"So learning tactics like the ones we did through the obstacle course, having people look in every direction all the time, is a good tactic there. So would area effect attacks." Jaune mused then grinned at Nora whose eyes lit up as Yang chuckled and Weiss groaned. "If we ever take a mission in grasslands Nora will have to bring some extra ammo along, and you have my permission to be excessive in its use."

"You are the best leader ever, of all time…" Nora purred, causing Blake to glare at her for some reason. And was it just Pyrrha's imagination, or did her bow twitch there?

After they had finished laughing Yang took over, mentioning how she had fought in a cityscape once, not elaborating on how that had come about. "Situational awareness is a must in that environment, and you need to always keep at least half an eye on the sky line. That at least is like moving through a forest, but the environment is incredibly different. You have to be aware of so many different things I…"

Yang stopped as Pyrrha's Beacon assignedscroll as it went off. "I wonder who could be calling me." It was her Beacon scroll after all, not her personal scroll, which she had turned off upon her arrival here and not used since. Her parents had known that, and frankly given their arguments about her coming here at all, she wasn't interested in anything they had to say. And she had no desire to speak to anyone else back in Mistral or who might have found out her scroll number somehow either.

When she held up the scroll it showed Ozpin's face, startling Pyrrha slightly and she looked over at her friends, who shrugged ignorance, their own scrolls not having gone off. "Miss Nikos, could you please come to my office? There is a certain problem that has cropped up of a diplomatic nature."

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed and she frowned realizing what this might be about. _Of course, it was too much to assume that my loss wouldn't have been made into big news back home._ _Darn it!_ Even in her own head Pyrrha was not the sort to curse. "I'll be there directly Headmaster."

"Thank you Miss Nikos." With that Ozpin cut the connection and Pyrrha stood up quickly.

"You want us to go with you?" Jaune asked promptly, leaping to his feet too as did Ren and Nora followed quickly by her other friends. "We're a team, if anything's bothering you we're…

That was as far as he got before Pyrrha grabbed all three of them in a hug, before pulling back. "It's fine, I think I know what this is all about, and it's nothing you can really help me with, just a bit of trouble back home, that's all."

Behind her, Ranma arrived, leading team two other freshman teams, all of whom looked much the worse for wear with thanks to his obstacle course. He paused, cocking his head thoughtfully as he gestured to the two teams to sit by the other teens, before turning to look at where Pyrrha was scaling up the ropes back up to Beacon. "Where is Big Red off to?"

 **OOOOOOO**

Glynda met Pyrrha at the door to the clock tower, her eyebrow quirking up in surprise at her disheveled state. "Oh yes you are coming from Ranma's class aren't you? I take it his obstacle course was challenging?"

"Oh yes Professor," Pyrrha said with a bright smile. "Extremely so and it was an excellent teambuilding exercises well."

"Yes he shared that aspect with me," Glynda replied, gesturing the younger woman to follow her, smiling ever so slightly as Pyrrha respectfully bowed her head to the older woman before falling in a step behind her. "It was one of the concepts that sold me on the entire idea actually. I was astonished that he and Port were able to put it together so swiftly however, I had assumed he would start you on that after the planned excursion to Forever Fall next week."

 _Instead, the two of them finished it in a bare two days,_ _while Ranma was helping Beni and I in our class yesterday as well,_ Glynda thought, keeping her thoughts off her face with ease. _If only all my colleagues had that kind of work ethic. Or perhaps Ranma simply thought it was fun._

As the doors to the elevator closed behind them, Pyrrha turned her head to look at Glynda quizzically. "So Professor, do you know if it was the Mistral government my manager or mother who called?

"I'm afraid I don't," Glynda said with a shrug. "I know we received a call from overseas, and it was about a video taken of you and Ranma fighting from last week. Apparently one of the students took it and uploaded it to the Rem-net."

She held up a hand to forestall Pyrrha's question. "And before you think it, no it was none of your friends, the angle was wrong for it to come from their scrolls. Even Ms. Xiao Long's, believe me I checked." Glynda added dryly. "Other than that, I'm afraid I'm as in the dark as you are."

She went on more critically, her eyes behind her glasses going down Pyrrha's muddy, paint splattered form. "Although I'm sure that the call could have waited for you to get changed and showered."

"The headmaster didn't indicate one way or the other Professor," Pyrrha shrugged. "I thought it would be best to simply come straight here."

Glynda nodded at that, though she could tell that Pyrrha hadn't been as worried about getting here quickly as possibly showing off or something along those lines. The rest of the trip up to the top of the clock tower passed quietly. Glynda wasn't exactly good at small talk, and Pyrrha had very little experience with it in any case.

The door to Ozpin's office opened ahead of them, and the two women entered quickly. As they did, Pyrrha heard a familiar voice shouting through the communication device, "I don't know what kind of school you're running, that allows the teacher to beat on a student like that!"

Ozpin said, looking up slightly from the communication screen just in time. "Your daughter is here Sally, Medeve."

 _This isn't going to be pleasant,_ Pyrrha thought to herself as she moved toward the headmaster's table. As she did so Ozpin punched a few buttons on his desk. The small screen on his desk disappeared to be replaced by a larger one on the wall to one side, allowing both those in the room and those on the other end to see all of the people in view. Somewhat, anyway, since the screen on the wall was split up.

On one half of the screen Pyrrha smiled at her mother, who took in her daughter's appearance with more than a bit of concern. To her side stood her manager, and he was alternating glaring at Ozpin to staring in appalled shock at Pyrrha's current state.

Or, as someone else would've called him, Medeve, her father. Pyrrha hadn't called him father in several years, a little bit of rebellion against the life that the two of them had… not forced down her throat exactly, but chosen for her without consulting her in the first place. Her rebellion had only gotten worse as Pyrrha grew up and realized what she had lost.

On the other side of the screen were four shadowy individuals, their features completely obscured by a scrambler of some kind. They apparently sat around a small table facing the screen on their end.

"You see!" said one of them, his voice tinny from being scrambled, almost genderless but not quite. "You're literally taking a symbol of our national pride and running it through the mud! We would never have allowed Pyrrha to go to Beacon in the first place if we thought you were going to abuse her so! This is a major mark against you Ozpin and I have half a mind of pulling all our support of. Haven could certainly use the extra funding after all."

 _Allowed?_ Pyrrha thought, her fingers twitching at her side unseen by any except Glynda. The blonde woman looked at her young student's hand for a brief second out of the corner of her eye then stepped back slightly, to watch proceedings and not interfere. _This looks interesting, and I'm not involved. My word, is this what Ozpin feels like whenever he's looking down from his tower at the rest of the school?_

"Pyrrha, are you all right? If you want to come home it's no shame after all, pitting you against another teacher, especially an unknown is beyond the pale!" her mother said.

Sally was a ginger-haired native of Atlas who had migrated to Mistral before the coup there had broken the corrupt government, replacing it with a government that was more an extension of the army than the other way around. She had been a weapon's designer before marrying her husband after meeting him on a trip to Harbor.

"Why would I want to come home?" Pyrrha asked simply, cocking her head. "And what you're seeing mother isn't anything bad, I just had a run through an obstacle course. It was exhilarating!"

She smiled brightly, and it was almost genuine Glynda thought, except her teeth were just a little too visible. "Besides, you and my manager know why I came here in the first place, and I have to say I have been successful beyond my wildest dreams. I have nearly a dozen new friends, friends who know me for me, not the Invincible Girl moniker."

At that her mother's leaned back slightly, frowning thoughtfully and looking at her with new eyes rather than the eyes of a worried mother while beside Sally her manager twitched.

"Pyrrha," he said rather plaintively. "We only want what's best for you honey. You know you're not going to learn much there. After all, you had the finest tutors and trainers, I doubt even in Beacon's senior class you'd find your equal especially since none of them have appeared in the tournaments you've taken part of. Why don't you come back, you can take a few weeks off of the tournament syndicate, get your head on straight about what you really want to do in your life."

"I thought I'd made it clear I had," Pyrrha replied, cocking her head thoughtfully and nodding. "Yes I know I did… manager." Again her father twitched at her needling, but she refused to stop calling him that.

Pyrrha had never doubted that her parents loved her, and her mother had always acted like a mother should, for the most part. But she had never fought against Pyrrha's becoming famous thanks to her skills. She had never worried about Pyrrha becoming friendless in school, or how much of the rest of her life had been sacrificed to the pedestal of the Invincible Girl.

Her father on the other hand had gotten behind that push big time, giving up his own job as a Huntsman to become first her trainer and then manager. She wasn't certain which of them had reached out to the Council of Mistral or if it had been the opposite, but she didn't really care either, he had set up the endorsements she had and always seemed more concerned about her public image, and using it to climb the social ladder, than anything else.

"Regardless of your wants child you have become a symbol of national pride for Mistral, a symbol for every Hunter and Huntress, gladiator and soldier of our nation," said one of the other councilors, his voice slightly deeper through the scrambler than the first.

"When we first saw that video of you being beaten on by the so-called Azure Warden we didn't believe it, but when we finally realized it was the truth, we knew we had to get you out of there. The Invincible Girl has to remain unsullied, pure!"

Pyrrha noticed however that two of the councilors were staying silent. One of them seemed to have begun to chuckle in the background at the word 'pure'. The other man nodded at her slightly, unseen by his fellows.

That sight allowed Pyrrha to retain her self-control and she slowly counted to ten in her mind, before letting out a breath that was more of a hiss before she began to reply. "I never agreed to be a symbol. I never agreed to be used as some untouchable idol. I am more than the Invincible Girl name you all and the Mistral media foisted on me! I could not care less about **any** of that!" Her voice rose with each sentence, until she was nearly shouting.

In response Marcus stepped back slightly in the shot, shock at his normally calm, docile daughter lashing out like this. Sally however carefully hid a smile behind one eye, her eyes lighting up at her daughter stood up for herself.

Pyrrha ignored that, breathing in deeply before going on. "I am not a gladiator any longer. I am a Huntress in training. And you should know **manager** …" she said, shooting him another glare, "after your time as one that involves quite a lot of work, quite a lot of training. If I am to become the best I can be, being beaten like that occasionally is simply a part of the educational process!"

She crossed her arms, glaring at all of them. "If you wanted an Invincible Girl as your standard-bearer, then I pity you," she said bluntly, staring at the half of the screen devoted to the Councilmen, where she noticed now two of them looked as if they were cracking up. "That is such a fragile symbol after all. Why not have another one, strength through adversity, durability, grim, dogged endurance in the face of any foe! **That** is what Mistral is known for, not pristine beauty or innocence, or whatever the… heck … you think I am!"

"How dare you!" spluttered one of the Councilmen who were not as amused by Pyrrha's little speech. "This decision is bigger than your wants or desires girl! You should have never left Mistral in the first place! It was a slap in the face of our national identity!"

"Honey," Her mother said, interrupting the politician before he could try to order Pyrrha home. "Is this really what you want to keep doing?"

She looked at her daughter searchingly as Pyrrha nodded firmly. "I came here for two reasons, one to make friends, friends who wouldn't know me as the Invincible Girl, friends who could look past that. The second was to challenge myself." She smiled wildly, her hands flying up into the air as she grinned at her mother, who smiled back. "I've been knocked off my pedestal, and I'm ecstatic about it!"

"Alright I won't ask you to come home honey. We won't try to bring you home or talk you out of staying at Beacon, and we'll ignore the pressure from the media and council to try and force you home somehow. But if you think I'm going to let you keep this whole communication silence you wanted, you've got another thing coming."

She held up a hand when her husband made to speak, while one of the councilors reached for a control, disconnecting them from the discussion as the fourth continued to chuckle. Without his political patrons Medeve simply frowned angrily.

"We'll talk later" Sally continued, then smirked suddenly, leaning forward. "By the way, that professor you fought, is he as delicious in real life as he looks in that video?"

Pyrrha blushed hotly and looked away, while Glynda rolled her eyes and Ozpin chuckled a little. 'Y, you don't actually expect me to answer that do you mother? But alright, I will call you this weekend and we can catch up."

"Good girl." Her mother said, leaning back. When Medeve made to interrupt, something happened off-screen and he twitched, leaning away from Sally slightly. "Have fun dear." she said, and winked before closing the monitor.

"That was well handled," Ozpin said nodding slightly. "Don't worry about the Mistral council, their part in this was mostly bluster and anger. Your streak of victories in the various tournaments has garnered quite a lot of respect for Mistral in Atlas, Vacuo and Vale. And of course the money that flows into their coffers from your endorsements. But their threat to withhold funding for Beacon is not that great a threat given their donations only constitute about ten percent of our budget."

The Mistral council wasn't actually as powerful politically as the Vale council was. But financially they were certainly important not only in Mistral, but worldwide.

Ozpin's voice was interrupted by a slow drawling sort of clap from the window to his office, and Glynda and Ozpin both whirled around to see Ranma leaning against the window pane, clapping slowly as he smirked at Pyrrha. "That was impressive, Ozzy's right about that. They won't make trouble for her family, will they?"

"No, Mistral doesn't work like that. In Atlas they could simply have ordered her home regardless of her wishes, and here in Vale they might have put pressure on her family. But the Mistrali are a fiercely independent sort of people. They do tend to get over caught up in symbolism and hero worship, but that is a minor character flaw.

"Not from where I was sitting…" Ranma said, looking over Pyrrha, who nodded slightly.

"True, I suppose it would be a different perspective entirely from the belly of such a beast." Ozpin nodded. "Still, so long as you wish to be here Pyrrha, I can deal with any pressure they decide to bring to bear."

"Thank you for your encouragement headmaster," Pyrrha said nodding her head towards him respectfully before doing the same to Glynda. "With your permission though, I think I'm going to go get a shower."

"After explaining to your team with just went down," Ranma said smirking. He flicked a hand out, and a long piece of string from his obstacle course whipped out to grab onto the inner latch of the door leading into Ozpin's office pulling it open quickly.

Team Juniper and Team Ruby fell forward, with Nora and Jaune at the bottom along with Yang, looking sheepishly other teachers. "Traitor!" Yang shouted, pointing at Ranma, who laughed and flipped himself back up and out through the window.

Glynda glared down at the students frowning in anger, but a gentle touch on her shoulder stopped her from lambasting them as their invasion of privacy in her opinion anyway truly deserved. She looked at Ozpin, who gestured with his head towards Pyrrha. She was smiling happily at her friends, moving forward to help them up one at a time, as they all gabbled at her in concern.

"Let them be," Ozpin said smiling slightly. Glynda frowned, but looked at the teams and simply nodded. She allowed the teens a few moments to talk before ushering the teams out and into the elevator. Bowing her head slightly towards her boss she followed them out.

Alone in his room once more Ozpin continued to smile for a few moments, leaning his head back as he contemplated this latest development. On the one hand, the fact that Pyrrha was willing to fight her own parents to stay here was a good sign. On the other hand, her new independence might not serve the plan to save the Autumn Maiden's powers. _Still, that plan was only a last ditch measure anyway, I can only hope that Atlas' doctors can come up with another way to save her._

 **OOOOOOO**

The next day Ranma walked into the cafeteria for breakfast, only to stop as a senior or junior, he wasn't certain, said loudly. "Yeah, it's kind of weird how standards have fallen here in Beacon. I mean not only do they let in that pint-sized little red riding hood, but they also actually give a guy a job just because his sister is already here. Must be nice to be able to ride on your sisters coattails like that."

"I know man! And then he had trouble with that Mistrali girl. I mean I know she's got a reputation over there, but come on, that was in those rigged gladiator contests. Those are about as real as pro wrestling. No way a teacher that's our age can be all that, especially if he has trouble with the so-called Invincible Girl."

To one side Ranma saw teams Ruby and Juniper sitting well within hearing range. Ruby had wilted in her cloak pulling the hood over her head despite Weiss actually pulling her into a light hug, glaring over her shoulder at the speakers. Ren, Nora and Jaune all looked angry, while Blake looked blank, her yellow eyes locked on the speakers in a way that Ranma knew would have had him looking for the nearest window.

But the most off-putting responses came from Yang and Pyrrha. Pyrrha had stilled, simply turning slightly to stare at the speakers, her fingers twitching on the table. Yang however in response to the dig at her sister had stood up her eyes blazing red as she turned, making her way over to the table with the speakers,.

Ranma however got there first, and he smirked down at the older students. _About damn time._ "You lot got seem to have a problem with me?"

The people at the table all looked at him smirking and one of them spoke up quickly. "Hell ya we got a problem with you. How anyone our own damn age thinks he's got anything to teach the freshies, let alone us is beyond me. You think just because you look like the so-called Azure Warden that you can come in here and have something to teach us? Don't make me laugh! Even the headmaster knows that, or your class would be open to everyone."

At the teacher's table Beni groaned aloud, covering her eyes and shaking her head. "Oh my god they are walking right into it." Hearing Glynda make an interrogative noise, she shook her head. "Ranma set them up, he hoped they would challenge him because, he's getting bored he says."

Glynda sighed shaking her head in reproof, but inwardly was rather amused. Far too many of the students believed they were true Hunter material when they were not, and even among the few A grade Hunter teams there was a certain level of arrogance that she did not like at all. With Charlotte and Brutus not around that arrogance had grown dramatically among the junior and senior classes. "I will inform the medical wing to be ready then, but in the long term I think this might well be good for them."

Back where the actual confrontation was taking place Ranma allowed his smirk to widen slightly, amused as always by the way people reacted to the cockiness inherent in that look. "Hmm, so your complaint is that I don't have anything to teach you is that it? Well if you got a problem with my skills, I suppose there's only one way to settle that isn't there? How many of you think like these morons?"

While the people so addressed were glaring at him about six other teams all nodded their heads though two more seemed split. Two couples, one from each team, were relatively friendly with Beni, and had never bought the idea that nepotism alone had earned Ranma his position. Still when their teammates stood up they did as well.

Looking at the numbers of people who wanted a piece of him, Ranma's smirk actually widened. "Ah good, this might not be boring then. Well I think the arena's open right now, so why don't you lot go get your weapons and put your bodies where your mouths are?"

This was a combat school, as Coco had said it wasn't unusual for differences between individuals or teams to be decided through combat. Nor was Ranma the first teacher to be challenged by the students. Not a year went by that Oobleck and Port, the two most irritating teachers to deal with, weren't challenged. Peach was occasionally as well, given her size and unassuming nature

Glynda of course was never challenged. Even the most arrogant knew not to mess with the Wicked Witch of Beacon. Beni had been challenged a few times, but she was rather cruel to her opponents, always leaving them with a small scar somewhere despite their Auras.

Ozpin, the Forge Master and Tacticus were never challenged for various reasons. The Forge Master told anyone who challenged him that she would destroy their weapons and then ban them from Beacon's armory, forcing the students to go elsewhere to repair the weapons at their own expense. Tacticus told students he would record the event then use it as an example in his classes.

The challenged teachers had the right to refuse but most didn't. After all, they were former Hunters too. Oobleck would simply zoom around the students until they exhausted themselves before doing just enough damage to put them out of the fight. Port would take anything they threw at him and laugh, smashing them to the floor. Peach was much more surgical, taking out the students by doing just enough damage to cripple them without being hit in turn, her Semblance being rather insidious and easily underestimated.

The students challenging Ranma all stood up ,seven teams worth spread over the upper three years of Beacon, two senior, three junior, and two from the sophomore class. Beni knew most of them, and knew that two of them, the two senior teams, resented not being seen by the faculty as true Hunter material. None of them were, it was as simple as that. The others were B-grade Hunters who knew it, but who also resented the primacy of the True Hunters here in Beacon, believing that hunting Grimm was a secondary task in today's world. It was ludicrous of course, especially to Beni, but since even a few teachers believed that, there was nothing she could do to combat that feeling.

Sharing these thoughts aloud with Glynda, she was not surprised to see her Sifu nod in agreement. "The duality of the skillset we need to teach toward here in Beacon has been irritating me ever since Semaphore fell. The populace should have taken that to heart not just in Vacuo but everywhere, that the Grimm are a major threat. But the politicians decided to down play it here in Vale and in Atlas, fearing that the fear it engendered in the populace would bring on more Grimm attacks. I can understand their point, but even so…"

While the two of them were talking Yang had reached Ranma, who smirked at her until he saw how red her eyes had gotten. "Easy girl, they challenged me, not you."

Yang's eyes blazed and she reached forward, grabbing Ranma by his shirt. "Wreck them!"

"Er, that was the plan, yes. What the heck did they say that's got you on the warpath Bad girl?" Ranma asked, trying hard not to flinch from the look in Yang's eyes.

"Good, and they insulted my sister." With that Yang stood back, her eyes returning to their normal violet hue as she smirked. "I'm looking forward to this…"

Within moments the cafeteria had emptied, with Beni, Ranma and Glynda going ahead to the arena, setting it up for the fight to come. The other students who had this period free gathered as well. This included Coco and Velvet, who were welcomed eagerly by their younger friends. Their two fellows were currently in Weapon's maintenance class.

"How exactly do you wish to do this Ranma? As the teacher you have the right to decide the combat type and environment." Glynda explained.

"Hmm, grassy plain for the combat environment, no way they can say I cheated or some such thing if I don't have any terrain to use against them. As for the type, let's make it all of them against me at once. I don't feel like taking the rest of the day at this."

Glynda and Beni both nodded, not seeing a problem with that, while the teens close enough to hear began to mutter amongst themselves. But if Ranma wanted to prove he belonged here as a teacher, beating all his challengers at once would prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

However Glynda poked him in chest lightly with the end of her riding crop, her eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "That is all very well, but this match will be determined by Aura readings, any individual whose Aura drops into the red will be out of the match. If you or them try to take this match beyond that, I will end it, and you won't like how I do so, is that understood?"

The challengers came into the arena, spreading out quickly as Glynda informed them about the combat type. Immediately Ranma saw why these teens weren't seen as real Hunter material. Instead of trying to work together to come up with a game plan, they just spread out, trying to envelop him while Glynda inputted their Aura readers into the system.

The moment they started the teens with guns opened up on Ranma, but Ranma used his shield to deflect the higher caliber rounds, ignoring the bullets which couldn't do much damage, like Ren's weapons. The next instant he had closed with one of the senior teams, his hatchet clashing against the rapier of one of his enemies smashing it aside to hack at the man behind it. his Aura dropped dramatically, and a spinning kick to the head knocked him out of the fight, his Aura dropping into the red. "GAH!"

Then Ranma was in among several of the teams forcing them to either fire on one another or take him in close. Watching this Pyrrha shook her head while Yang, Ruby and Nora shouted encouragement. "Choice of two evils there, and against Ranma either way you go you're in trouble."

"Shooters spread out!" Shouted one of the other seniors, finally realizing that they had to organize. "Close in specialists try to pin him in place, shooters pour it on when you can."

"Easier said than done," Pyrrha and Yang said, then looked at one another before gigglings as the battle continued down on the floor of the arena.

The teens facing Ranma learned just how hard it could be to fight him when he slipped out from the attempted envelopment, his mono wire shooting up to the roof as he lashed out, sending several other students down into the yellow while riding the mono-wires spinner up it's length. In one hand he held a rifle he had taken from one of his attackers which he fired down on heads and shoulders, taking out several of them.

Before the teens with the heavier guns could find their range Ranma flicked the mono-wire, releasing it and kicking off of thin air it looked like to change his direction. Before anyone could figure out where he went he was in front of the senior who had tried to organize his fellows. A single hammer blow from his right hand smashed out, catching the older teen in the head, sending him ass over feet backwards to land against the far wall, his Aura deep in the red. A hard shield bash took out one of his teammates, as a kick lashed out, catching both of the others, hurling them backwards. All three joined their fellow, their Auras deep in the red and out of the fight.

"A single punch," Weiss said shaking her head. "Coco, correct me if I'm wrong, but their Aura's aren't that weak, are they?"

"Nooopppe," Coco said drawling the word out as she pulled down her glasses to stare down into the arena.

"It was also tactically brilliant." Blake said coolly. "He took out the people who were trying to make plans for the entire group. That's not a group of teams willing to work together, it's a mob now unless someone else steps up.

Ranma stood in the center of the rest of the arena, smirking as he watched the guy he'd just punched limp out of the arena. "Well, what are the rest of you doing, come on! Or are we done here?

The group looked angry, and probably would have continued to attack him, except they were interrupted by a loud klaxon sounded out over the speakers throughout Beacon Academy. As everyone stared at the nearest speaker Ozpin's voice suddenly boomed for from every speaker as well. "All teachers are to assemble immediately on the landing deck kitted out for combat. Team CFVY, Team SAIL and Team GRNG assemble immediately on the landing deck. This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill!"

Ranma's eyes flew wide, and he looked over to where Glynda and Beni stood seeing them as shocked as he was. A second later all three of them raced into action, the two women turning quickly and exiting as Glynda slammed her hand down on to the control panel. "This contest is finished!" she said, glaring around. "To your dormitories immediately, you will stay there until we get more information about what is going on. Understood?"

With the Witch of Beacon glaring at them not even the bravest student was willing to argue, and they rapidly vacated the area. Nora and Ruby found themselves at the back of their teams as they walked away quickly along with the rest of their team.

"Something's up, but it isn't here." Ruby said to her ginger-haired friend, her voice nearly unheard over the tumult. "If it was, they wouldn't be assembling at the landing deck. Something going on in Vale? Or somewhere else? Why aren't they calling us in to help? This is what we're all training for after all."

"Let's find out," Nora said with a grin, nodding her head down a path they'd just passed.

Ruby smirked, skidding to a halt and ducking to one side as the rest of the crowd headed past and Nora followed her gleefully. "But first, let's stop by the lockers and grab our weapons."

 **OOOOOOO**

Ozpin was waiting for them at the landing deck, leaning on his cane as he stared into a scroll. The other teachers had all assembled, including a few Ranma hadn't even met yet, a short mousy looking woman, (literally mousy, she had mouse ears sticking out of her hair) and two men who looked more like retired detectives than Hunters in their trench coats and armor.

Looking up from his scroll Ozpin nodded his head and when he spoke his voice was crisp and decisive. "Brutus's team has called in. There is a massive Grimm incursion attacking the town of Waypoint."

Seeing Ranma frowning in confusion Beni leaned over. "Waypoint is a major trade station on the border between here and Vacuo. All overland trade goes through there since it controls the only road that goes straight through Vacuo's desert. It's home to at least one Hunter team at all times, and Brutus and his team routinely base themselves there."

Ranma nodded, figuring if the traffic that first day they'd seen that road going the other way he and Beni might've landed there rather than Vacuo the city. _And they can't send really heavy stuff through the air, even the largest bullhead can't handle as much weight as a ship or even a large enough truck could._

Ozpin had continued as Beni filled Ranma in. "Team Rust was nearby and has already responded but Brutus is officially calling in every Hunter unit he can within response range. Given the number of bullheads Beacon has on hand, that means us."

All the students and teachers assembled nodded seriously. "Glynda, you will be in charge of this operation, I trust you to see to the evacuation of Waypoint as best you can. From Brutus' reports, this attack eclipses the attack on Semaphore, and Waypoint lacks any of Semaphore's natural defenses."

Ranma frowned. He didn't like the assumption that they would have to retreat whatever Ozpin said about the size of the incursion. After all, the more you retreat the less you have to fight from. He also didn't like the way Ozpin had said Glynda would be in charge of the operation. "What about you Ozzy?" He asked.

"I cannot leave Beacon at this time," Ozpin replied, his eyes locked on Glynda's, who frowned, then began to nod, still frowning. "Hence myself, Oobleck and Forge Master Reginald will be remaining here."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Ranma growled. "What the hell could be more important than trying to protect Waypoint and its citizens!"

To his side Beni nodded, but her eyes were on Glynda rather than Ozpin. It was obvious Glynda had understood something there, something which made her agree that Ozpin had to stay behind. What that could be Beni didn't know however.

"There are things at stake here that you are not required to know." Ozpin said coolly, before going on, detailing what they were sending, as well as the three student team's parts in this operation.

Looking around, Ranma realized he was the only one even questioning Ozpin, which was beyond bizarre to him. _I know they have to trust the guy, but to just take his words at face value like that in a time like this? then there's what Spring told me about him, what the hell could be so important as to keep him and two of our best fighters here!?_

As the others turned away to the groups of bullheads behind them Ranma marched up to Ozpin glaring at him. "I am not a mushroom of Ozpin." Ranma growled. "If you've got secrets that keep you here, then you're probably endangering every person here, and I don't like that. If anything happens to them I will blame you!"

"Nonetheless," Ozpin said calmly, staring down the younger man. "My decision stands."

Ranma growled again, but turned for the doorway. "Mushroom?" Ozpin's voice asked behind him.

Ranma looked over her shoulder glaring at the other man. "Kept in the dark and fed on shit!" he said, giving him the finger as he walked out, leaving Ozpin alone.

The older man leaned on his cane as he watched the sighing faintly. _That could've gone better. I should have realized that Ranma would not have much trust in me after so short a time. Nonetheless, this overt a move against an unimportant target smacks of deception, which has always been the opposing king's strong point, even before her queen gathered pawns. No, this is a feint, they will try to infiltrate, and we must be prepared for them._

 **OOOOOOO**

The flotilla of bullheads had been in the air for about twenty minutes when Tacticus heard a noise from one of the bullhead's supply cabinets. Frowning he opened it, only for Nora to pop out as Ruby fell out behind her. "Its'a me, Nora!"

Staring at the two freshman, only one of whom looked even slightly sheepish, he sighed, before grabbing them both by an ear and marching them squealing through the large bullhead. In the front-most cargo hold the two of them found themselves in front of Ranma, Beni and Glynda, all of whom were going over a map of the area around Waypoint.

"What the hell are you two doing here!?" Ranma said the first to recover from their shock. "Ruby, your sister is going to burn the school down once she finds you missing, and you Nora, what the hell are you thinking?"

"This is not a game Ms. Rose, Ms. Valkyrie. I am very disappointed in you." Glynda said, shaking her head and pointing her riding crop at each girl in turn.

"But we want to help!" Ruby protested, pulling out the shrunk version of Crescent Rose out from under her cloak. "Isn't that what we are supposed to be training for? And in a situation like this, can't you use any help you can get?"

Beni sighed leaning back slightly as she touched Glynda's hand gently. "She's right, and we couldn't even turn around and drop them off, we'll already be arriving late as it is to try and stop the Grimm from getting into the town."

Glynda scowled at that, but had to concede the point. Another part of her was also pleased to see the fire in Ruby's eyes, her desire to be a Hunter shining through here, even if she was appalled at the lack of understanding of her skill level the girl showed. "I agree with your reasoning Ms. Rose, but you are still just a student, not a Hunter no matter how skilled a student you might be. There will still be punishment for this when we return."

"Feh, let the punishment fit the perpetrators Glynda." Ranma smirked, even as his hands began to clench and unclench, his body preparing itself for a real fight. "Ruby, no chocolate cookies for a month and Nora, now pancakes for the same amount of time."

If they had been on the ground the twin screams of agony and fear would have gathered Grimm from miles around.

 **OOOOOOO**

"Where the heck is my little sister darn it!?" Yang growled, pacing team RWBY's room angrily. The team had been separated for a bit when the crowd of freshman and sophomores began to mingle along the paths to the dorms. Weiss had nearly been trampled and Ruby was still nowhere to be seen.

"Where did you see her last!?" Yang was directing these words towards Weiss who as Ruby's partners should've been looking out for her despite knowing the younger girl's own issues.

"I don't know!" The shorter girl replied throwing her hands in the air. "Last I saw her she was …no... Ruby wouldn't be that much of a dolt, would she?"

"Where!?" Yang growled.

"It was while we were running from the gladiator arena."

"Which just so happens to cross a path that would lead her right to the landing pad," Blake groaned. "Ruby wouldn't, would she?"

"She would." Yang said, deflating slightly. "Rubes wouldn't even realize she was doing something wrong, it would be just like her to want to pitch in however she could." On the one hand Yang was quite proud of that attitude, but on the other… _oh she is_ _ **so**_ _getting it when I see her again!_

They were interrupted as the door opened, looking up in surprise, though not so much when they saw Jaune sticking his head in. Only team Juniper could access team Ruby's door like that, and the boys could only do it because all the girls knew both Jaune and Ren were thoroughly in awe of the womenfolk among them.

"Have any of you seen Nora?" Jaune asked, before looking around only to see an absence of red cloak. "Oh crap."

"Yeah," Yang said, cracking her shoulders slightly as she reached under her bed and pulled out Ember Celica, clanking them over her wrists. "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go get my sister."

Blake nodded, pulling out Gambol Shroud and moving to stand by her partner, both of them looking over at Weiss. Instead of arguing against them going however, or even looking as if she disagreed, Weiss had already strapped Myrtenaster to her belt, and glared at them. "Well, what are we waiting for dolts? Let's go get my partner!"

"We're with you." Jaune said opening the door further to show Pyrrha, himself, and Ren all dressed in their hunting garb.

Yang smiled at them all then led the way out of the dormitories racing towards the landing deck. Luckily there was a bullhead still waiting with its engines revved just in case.

Wasting no time Yang jumped up onto the stairs leading up the cockpit pulling it open to grin brightly, if something like a shark, at the pilot. "Hi! We're going to be commandeering this vehicle for a bit, my sister seems to have taken off with the teachers, so we're going after them. That okay with you cutie?"

The man, in his mid-thirties, gaped at the tall blond woman, shaking his head. "I, I can't take you, you're just kids! Besides, I'm supposed to wait for one of the other professors, they're just finishing up loading medical supplies now"

"Looks almost fully loaded to me," Weiss said critically, looking at the boxes in the back. There would be barely enough room for the six of them, and that was with a few of them sitting up front with the pilot. "If you put on more, you'll lose speed and won't be able to catch up to the rest of the bullheads." And against Grimm a single bullhead coming into a combat zone was in more danger of being attacked and downed then a group of them.

The man was about to argue despite that, but Yang grabbed him by the collar, lifting him up bodily and holding him out of the bullhead. "You either come with us and drive, or I leave your ass here!"

Noticing her partners eyes beginning to flash to red, Blake laid a hand on her shoulder and looked at the man shaking her head. "Don't argue with her, just don't."

 **End Chapter**

* * *

Heh, I did say I would be changing canon didn't i? I have only begun to play with it! Actually I had intended this chapter to include the battle the characters are heading toward, but the first few scenes in it fought me, and I just couldn't get the POV's to really work, so decided to scrap it from the final product.

This was not the fic that won the poll here on fanfic, though it did come second. However over on Pata Reon it won by a wide margin, with Magic coming in second given how I have changed how I weight the polls to give more voice to my patrons over there. If you wish to have a larger say in which chapters I put out, please become a patron. You will receive access to the first several chapters of my One Piece/Ranma crossover, a patron only chapter per month and discussion threads about my stories as well.

Please note that since February is an ATP month, there will only be one other story updated here on fanfic, and thanks to my muse being on a major Star Wars binge of late, I have decided to only put the two SW crossovers and Game Changer, which won the poll last month here on fanfic, in the poll for February.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this, and as always please review.


	9. Chapter 9

RWBY isn't mine, nor is Ranma, though it would be nice.

Here is the next chapter of Semblance of Hope. This won last month's poll with a last minute push that sent it over the second place winner, A Fate Touched in Middle Earth, over on my P at a ron page. Because it was so last minute I couldn't quite get it out by the end of May as I normally would. Never fear however, this will not stop my regular monthly updates this month. Seriously, I had to fight to give my RWBY and Marvel/HP muse time this month, every time I wasn't fighting for them my mind was consumed by the flashing of lightsabers.

This has however not been betaed yet, but I have read through it myself several times. Hopefully that has been enough to find most of the small mistakes.

 **Chapter 9: Last Stands Are Overrated**

Small bullheads like the fleet from Beacon could cover a lot of ground very quickly, and barely 45 minutes passed since Nora and Ruby's outburst the bullheads began to see scores, or rather flocks, of avian style Grimm flying well out from the main horde assaulting Waypoint. Glynda took control of the small fleet, ordering the bullheads into formation and pushing out two of them to the side facing the oncoming Grimm as they came closer.

Those two bullheads were equipped with weapons rather than to carry people or cargo. Their weapons ripped into the swarms of Nevermore and other avian type Grimm, sending them spiraling away wounded or down to their deaths. Luckily there were no giant breeds this far away from the main flock, else it would have been much harder.

This went on for about twenty minutes while Benzaiten was on the headset trying to get updates from Waypoint. Eventually she looked up at Glynda. "I have Ragnar on the line. He and his team are on the walls and report four groups of B-grade Hunters have stepped up from the local population. They and the police are seeing to the evacuation and helping the defense. Waypoint's gates are closed and their defensive cannons online."

"What about Brutus and his team?" Glynda asked.

"They apparently went out into the woods leading up into the mountains to try and stave off the assault. According to Ragnar he was still in communication with them as of ten minutes ago, and they were trying to make it back to the city. Ragnar also reports that the city is being encircled on the ground and attacked from multiple direction despite Brutus' efforts." Beni replied crisply.

Glynda nodded, staring first at Benzaiten then through to the transport area at the two wayward students behind the cockpit, one of whom was still grinning as if this was a big adventure. To Glynda's surprise however Ruby's face held a seriousness that Glynda haven't seen from the young girl before this. She had to approve really, there was no fear there, only resolution. _There are worse things to feel than that and Ms. Valkyrie's eagerness when you're going into a battle like this._

"Ma'am," said one of the two pilots, staring at the radar screen. "We seem to have a lone bullhead coming up behind us. Er, it's code is registering as one of the ones assigned to the follow-on wave, but it's redlining its engines trying to catch up with us."

"Oh no," Ruby groaned, her seriousness breaking. "Oh, please no!"

"Yeah that'd be Yang," Ranma said from where he was leaning back against the wall of the cockpit. "I mean come on did you honestly expect your sister to act any other way? You have met her right?"

"Hey that's not nice!" Ruby pouted.

"No, what's not nice is the noogie she's probably going to give you. Premature baldness is not a nice thing, but I think it's in your future my dear," Benzaiten replied to that looking over at Ruby before looking at Glynda. "What should we do?"

"Bring them into the formation," Ranma said before Glynda could speak. He looked over at the older teacher and shrugged his shoulders. "Those two teams, and I bet you Nora's team is there as well, are the best of their class. I don't want to put them at the senior level, but they might be nearly as good individually as Coco and her group and we could use the added firepower."

Glynda frowned but nodded. "Open a line to that bullhead. We need to tell them what's going on, and make sure your guess as to the nature of the people aboard is accurate."

A bare second after doings so both pilots had to yank their headsets off as Yang's voice roared out "Ruby! You are in so much trouble!"

Deciding that if she couldn't see other people they couldn't see her Ruby hid herself by pulling her hood over her face while trying to make herself seem small beside Nora. The ginger haired girl was laughing at her until Jaune's voice came on, his words echoed by Ren in the background. "And don't think you're getting out of this scot-free either Nora!"

Glynda once again took charge of the situation. "Pilot you may bring your bullhead into the formation. Mr. Arc, Mr. Xiao Long, we will be talking about this usurpation of Beacon property and placing both yourself and other people in danger after this crisis is over. Your sister and Ms. Valkyrie's actions are also going to be included in that second topic, believe me."

"I still say the punishment should fit the punished," Ranma said, cracking his neck as he looked out the bullhead's canopy. "Something to take from them or to not allow them for a few weeks rather than just detention or whatever. It'll probably work better as a deterrent that way. For Yang I'd suggest forbidding her to use haircare products for a week." he said evilly. _That'll teach her to monopolize my damn shower._

"You are dead to me," Yang growled through the receiver before looking over the others who were giggling or smiling at her reaction.

That stopped as Ranma went on, mentioning tea for Ren, chocolate for Pyrrha and books for Blake, but he faltered on Weiss. "I have no idea on her sorry."

"Forbid her from wearing white?" Ruby asked, peeking out from under her hood now that the conversation had moved on from her.

One of the pilots interrupted the banter at this point. "We have incoming!"

Hundreds, of avian style Grimm were coming towards them now from directly in front, below and above in greater numbers than the groups they had dealt with before. And in the distance they started to hear the anti-air fire from Waypoint chugging away.

Glynda stared ahead, frowning thoughtfully then began to shout out orders. "Silas, Esther, Coco, plow the road! Everyone else defend our flanks, bullhead four and five, split off high and low."

The two armed bullheads ascended and descended, firing at the Grimm coming from above and below keeping them back rather than doing significant damage to the number of them. At the same time three of the other bullheads pulled ahead slightly from the rest of the group. These bullheads held teams CFVY, GRNG and SAIL, the standout sophomore team and two senior grade so-called b-level teams.

Silas was a medium-sized man with long hair falling down to his waist in ponytail who used a huge multi-barreled 'anything goes' cannon. Each barrel was configured so as to fire a different type of round, and at the moment he had loaded up flak rounds from the front-most position.

To the right of him Esther opened up with her own arm gun. A somewhat tall beanpole of a girl Esther used a rifle that was almost as tall as she was, with a sniper scope on the end of it. It fired ice fueled dust rounds, large ones that could actually freeze their targets for a few moments. She took out any Giant Nevermores or other A level Grimm she saw, while the other two concentrated on thinning the flock overall.

Ranma watching interest as Coco's handbag, which he'd seen a time or two before, folded out into a huge Gatling gun, the same length as Silas'. A loud 'braaaaapppp' was heard as she opened up, cutting a line through the aerial Grimm, none of whom had enough armor to stop a round going that fast.

A second later they were through that first group, and Ranma could now make out more details about the city they were looking to relieve. Waypoint sat directly the road into the pass leading into Vacuo, with a few farms scattered around it, but at least a mile of cleared ground between it and the forests leading up into the mountains on either side. It was a decent sized walled town of around six thousand people, though it could house twice that during the busy trade seasons or from the large, heavily guarded convoys that came in or went out to Vacuo. At the moment no such convoy was in the city, which was a mixed blessing. The walls were two stories tall, with cannons on the walls every few hundred feet and wide enough for four men to walk abreast.

The Grimm might have started from coming down from the mountains, but now they had surrounded the city. They had invested the farm areas and were now attacking the walls in dozens of places, their numbers growing as the bullheads zoomed closer.

Beside him Beni looked up at Glynda. "I've got Brutus on the line! He and his team are pulling back from the southeast, no serious injuries but they had to retreat or be overwhelmed. He also says he's seen a few Tirceragators and arachnoids. He also says that Naomi might have spotted something larger, but isn't certain."

"Damn it," Glynda muttered, ignoring the shocked gazes from the students who had yet to hear her curse. "How are we going to even hold out until we can evacuate everyone if they are already at the walls?"

"Screw evacuating!" Ranma growled, glaring at her for a moment before turning to face forward again. "Every time you evacuate, every time you give ground, you have less to fight from the next time. We should fight this battle as if we can win, because we can! Brutus didn't report anything in the town causing this assault right? Then as long as we hold the line, we can wipe them out or turn them aside until whatever is driving them fades!"

"We need to create a forward position," Ranma went on before Glynda could respond, pointing towards a halfway point between where the walls of Waypoint stood and where the forest leading up into the mountains began. "Create a forward position there, pull the Grimm away from the town for a bit while we get Brutus and his team out of there. After that, if we can somehow create a firebreak, we might be able to see off the entire assault if we wipe out the Grimm between the fire break and the city walls!"

Glynda and Benzaiten exchanged a glance, understanding dawning. "That, that could actually work, we could use the fire dust powering one of the bullheads, scatter it in a circle around the city then ignite it," Glynda said with a nod. She wasn't actually that good a tactician, at least not on a scale like this battle. She'd never been a team leader, having always let that kind of stuff to Ozpin. "But holding that forward position until we pull out Brutus and his team is going to be difficult."

"Me," Ranma said simply, then looked over at his sister. "And you too I suppose?"

Glynda shook her head pointing at a group of larger than average Grimm that had just come out of the woods in the distance. "No, Benzaiten and I will deal with the triceragators before they can batter the walls down. We'll also create the firewall. The forward position will be you, Professor Port and whoever else you want from the students, though I would urge caution in who you choose."

Grunting Ranma looked over at Nora. "In that case, I won't take any full teams with me, anyone with guns would be more useful on the walls or working with the team we'll send out to help get Brutus back into Waypoint."

"And hunting down any Grimm that try to burrow into town." Beni interjected, to which her listeners all nodded.

Having seen Ranma look at her Nora began to hop up and down in her chair. "Ooh, ooh me, pick me!"

"Your powers electric getting energy from electricity right?"

Nora nodded eagerly. That had come out while they were talking about weapons with Ruby the other day.

"In that case, There should be a spare battery pack or something around here, find it and drain that bad boy," Ranma ordered. Nora's eyes gleamed with eagerly, and she rushed over to dig into the service they. As she did that Ranma turned back to his own headset. "Yang, you and Nora are going to be on flash duty."

"Flash duty, really, here and now? Well if you insist…"

"I mean you're going to splash down there and make a massive impact," Rama explained, rolling his eyes. "Not the time Bad Girl. We're going to be targets, bring the horde down on us, get the walls some reprieve."

"Just the three of you?" Jaune asked.

"No, Yatsuhashi and Port are going to join us. The two of them, me, Nora and Yang are the most durable here and we're also all among the best in hand to hand."

"Well if it's a matter of durability, then I'll go too," Jaune said stoutly, while Yatsuhashi and Port, each on other bullheads responded in the affirmative. The giant was calm and collected, while Port was ebullient, sounding as if he was looking forward to the coming battle.

"I think not Mr. Arc. While your aura is incredibly powerful, you lack the training needed to survive in that environment, and helping you would endanger the others." Glynda interjected. "The rest of your teams will head directly to the wall for a combat drop. Tacticus, you will assume command until I arrive on the wall."

Abroad another bullhead the beginning tactics and criminal law teacher nodded and Glynda went on. "Team SAIL, you'll be on anti-air duty. Team GRNG, civilian evacuation and search and destroy within the walls."

"Ruby, you go with them too," Benzaiten interjected, having noticed the girl opening her mouth, probably to say that she should join the splash group. "Brutus and his team haven't broken out of the woods, so we might need someone fast to go in and get them out. For that, team RWB is the best we have on hand."

"Very well, that's the plan, pilots full speed ahead!" Glynda ordered. "bullheads five and six, assume over-watch on the bullheads containing the medical gear and Teams GRNG and SAIL"

"I wonder what music I should listen to while we're doing this," Yang mused to herself, not realizing she was still on the headset. Yang was an adrenaline junky, and the upcoming fight held no physical terrors to her, thus the idea of musical accompaniment to add to her enjoyment.

Glynda rolled her eyes, but wasn't about to take umbrage at it. She knew lots of hunters who liked to listen to music during combat.

She did look rather askance for a moment however when Beni spoke up in approval of the idea. "Songs and music in general can bolster people's emotions, which can make Grimm less effective or aggressive. We should have one of the Bullhead start broadcasting rock music. Plus, I could use the help when I start using my semblance Sifu."

"Makes sense but then what would should we listen to?" Yang asked before Glynda could respond.

"Children," Glynda sighed with a roll of her eyes, but her lips were twitching upwards. Their enthusiasm and upbeat attitude towards the challenge ahead was rather nice. "I however retain the right to choose the music." Plugging in her scroll into the bullhead's control system she scrolled through it for a moment while the bullheads roared closer to the drop off point and the guns of those on anti-air duty continued to roar in the background

As the song 'Apocalyptic' began to play Yang's mouth dropped open. "No freaking way!"

"Did you think your generation invented being bad Ms. Xiao Long?" Glynda asked archly.

"Professor Goodwitch, you are like the most fantastic teacher ever, of all time!" Yang shouted as she ripped open the doors of her Bullhead, her eyes beginning to glow red with eagerness as she cocked her fists, Ember Celica moving into position over them.

The song belted out from all of the external speakers on each bullhead in the group and Ranma rolled his eyes even as he grinned. "I wear my nine-inch heels when we go to bed. I paint the color of my lips blood red. I get so animal like never before, so you press play and I hit record!"

By this time Nora had opened one of the bullhead's lockers and had found the spare battery. She pulled out a few wires, connecting them to the plus and minus ends of the battery, her fingers making the connection between the two wires as sparks began to appear there. "Oh yeah, there's the juice!"

Ranma joined her at the bullhead's doors, his entire body glowing blue for a moment as he grabbed up his shield and hatchet. "Lets do this team!"

Nora leaped out from over 150 feet in the air her hammer in polearm mode held up above her head as she shouted. "Here comes the splash page Grimmies, Nora **smash**!"

"Yeehaw!" Yang leaped out of her Bullhead at the same moment, her entire body lit up like a bonfire, and Yatsuhashi also jumped out of team CFVY's bullhead, his giant sword cocked behind his head. Nearby Port howled with laughter and hopped out, looking almost ungainly in comparison to the youngsters but with all the irresistible power of a meteor.

The five of them all slammed into the same general portion of the Grimm horde, crushing heads and bodies as they hit. The impact created a massive shockwave that reverberated away from them hurling Grimm through the air or simply shattering them entirely for several hundred feet in every direction.

All around them the horde paused in its mad rush towards the town, recoiling in places or even turning away entirely, shocked at this assault and the music blaring out above them. "…But there's still one thing we're good for! I'll give you one last night so make it twisted, give you one last shot, Go on and hit it! Give you one last time to make me miss it! Baby, love me apocalyptic!"

Benzaiten used the musical accompaniment to summon up her powers, conjuring into being several dozen short swords, then hundreds then thousands more. Wave after wave of them were then hurled down to impact among the Grimm slaughtering dozens more in a line around the city as their Bullhead circled it, dropping the bullhead's fuel out in a long, sustained dribble of fire type dust. At the same time the rest of the bullheads moved toward the town, their way cleared by the fire from Coco and the others as the two armed bullheads moved into position over the town zooming this way and that as they engaged the airborne attackers.

Ranma was the first out of the giant crater they had created, hurling himself forward with a yell bisecting a Beowolf with one blow as he kicked a Creep into the air so high it flew out into the woodlands a mile distant. _Here I stand bastards, I'm not retreating this time, you're not winning this time, not again,_ _ **not again**_ _!_

"I bet I kill more than you do sexy!" Yang shouted as she rocketed forward from a twin discharge from Ember Celica. Her hair was a mane of fire behind her as she barreled into an Ursa, lifting the large Grimm's face off the ground before pumping a blast from her shotgun gauntlets into it's head.

"You're on!" Ranma laughed, while the Grimm continued to recoil from their assault.

"HOHOHOHO," Port bellowed, suddenly slamming forward into a Deathstalker to one side of where Yang and Ranma were fighting before it could try to get close enough to attack them. The impact hurled the Deathstalker backwards off balance and an instant later his blunderbuss/axe slammed into the thing's skull, cutting straight through. "Can anyone get in on this challenge? I do believe the larger the Grimm, the more points they are worth."

Two shots rang out as one from the walls and two more Deathstalkers died, a single eye having been pierced by a long range sniper round to blow out their brains. "I agree with Professor Port, the larger Grimm should count as ten or perhaps fifteen of the smaller ones." Pyrrha said calmly over the radio, while she and Ruby began to fire to suppress any of the larger type Grimm around the forward position.

"It is rather unusual but I might get into this too," Yatsuhashi mused, his sword flashing out, slicing into and through several Grimm.

"Ooh I want in too!" Nora cackled, racing up behind them as Magnhild turned into is grenade launcher mode. Dozens of bunched up Grimm died under her fire and she shouted gleefully. "I bet I'm in the lead now, I am right? Give me that sweet kill count baby!"

 **OOOOOOO**

"Holy Hell, whose idea was that! It's fucking brilliant! Insane, but brilliant!" Uzuri Copper shouted in glee, exchanging a quick fist bump with her twin Terrence as the two of them fired into the horde below. They both used halberds with rifles underslung along the pole of the halberds, as well as backup knives.

"Is that **the** Pyrrha Nikos over there?!" Nathan shouted, the Mistrali native actually running away from the fight to watch the red-haired champion raced to another position along the wall through more than a dozen Grimm followed by two boys of a similar age. "I'd heard she was a student at Beacon, but I haven't had the time to look for her. You think she'd give me her autograph, or, or…"

"Get your mind on the fight team." Ragnar growled his lips twisted into a smirk despite his tone. Despite that he too watched the distant fight around the forward position for a moment, concentrating on Nora with a raised eyebrow. _Huh, she fights like a Valkyrie at least, I might have to talk to her at some point. If we both live through the day anyway._

 **OOOOOOO**

Ruby and her team landed on the wall quickly while Coco and her team moved to take over the defense of one of the gatehouses. Team SAIL took over one of the wall's corner buttresses where Silas continued to fire up into the flocks above, while the others protected him or fired down into the horde trying to climb the wall. Thankfully Ursa and Creeps couldn't climb very well, and while Beowolves could leap up to the top, they weren't much of a threat in singletons of tiny packs.

At the same time, Team GRNG began to move through the town, only running into a few Nevermores that had gotten past the antiair defenses. It looked as if the Grimm hadn't figured out or couldn't dig under the wall into town.

This made Tacticus' task easier. He, with the help of three B-grade Hunter teams, graduated groups of Hunters not up to the job of taking the fight to the Grimm, rather here to aid the police force, took command of the anti-air battle. The mayor of the town was already organizing the evacuation to a few central underground shelters well enough without his input with the help of a fourth B-grade team.

Blake, Weiss and Ruby however stayed by the nearest point with the forward position where they had been dropped off. They protected that Portion of the wall and thinning the numbers of the horde outside but were really waiting to see if Brutus or his team, the seniors they had heard of many times but had yet to meet, could break out of the shadowy woods a mile distant.

Not five minutes since they arrived it was already clear that while Ranma's gamble had had a major impact. A full fifth of the horde, including the majority of the Grimm coming out of the nearby woodlands were attacking them rather than surging forward to the walls. While there were still more than enough Grimm attacking the city to break its walls, the teams in Waypoint started to really see a difference as the battle continued, thinning out their numbers while Glynda and Beni continued to slowly circle the town, dumping out more fire dust.

About ten to fifteen minutes went by, the fight around the forward position becoming seemingly more desperate while the fight around the wall slowly got worse, more Grimm coming down out of the woodlands further away from the forward position. The defenders all re-positioned to match, but Ruby kept her team in place, knowing their task was too important.

Ruby herself was staring at the tree-line through her sniper scope and was the first to spot human-shaped movement there. "There they are!" she shouted joyfully.

The man who broke out of the edge of the woods was wielding a simple spear with a leaf-shaped point with incredible accuracy with one hand. His other hand was clamped to his body by some kind of makeshift sling. He was wearing what Ruby thought of as the traditional ranger outfit from her fantasy books, with green and brown pants, shirt and cloak.

His hood was up covering his features to her scope-assisted sight. Even as he twirled around, it stayed in position for some reason. "I've got to learn how to do that…" Ruby muttered.

"Go!" Glynda barked through the coms, looking over at the three freshmen from where she and Beni were finishing their circuit. "And good luck." With that she began to reach out with her power of telekinesis, picking up and hurling aside Grimm between the wall and the forward position.

At the same time Weiss created a glyph to help her, Ruby and Blake to jump down into the now cleared area. Before either of the others could move Blake flipped herself in midair a few times before landing and rolling on her feet, Gambol Shroud coming up in gun form and laying down suppression fire towards a couple of Creeps, killing several of them and forcing the others back while the other tow made their way down slightly slower. "Let's go!"

"Grab on, Racing forward Ruby grabbed both her teammates hands with Crescent Rose on her back. Weiss had a brief second to conjure up another glyph in front of them before Ruby activated her semblance and the zoomed forward, leaving behind her patented rose petals.

An instant later they reached the man and while Blake and Ruby started to cut into the hordes all around them, Weiss quickly moved to help the man. A few fire dust attacks roared out to either side of him then another freezing attack in front which froze then shattered a few Grimm as he quickly leaped over their bodies to land beside her. He looked at her quizzically, and Weiss noted that he had a short very neatly cropped goatee under and brown eyes. "Who are you?"

"Weiss Schnee," she said a little bemused and somewhat irritated at not having been recognized right away. Then she twirled around to stab a Beowolf that had just been about to leap at her from over her makeshift Grimm ice sculptures. The man too turned, his spear passing by her side to spear a Creep then swing the dissipating bodies into her ice sculptures shattering them.

"I thought you were a freshman," he said bemusedly, before turning to look at the forest that he had just exited.

"We are, but one of our team decided it would be fun to sneak aboard the ship carrying our professors, and the rest of us came after them.

The man nodded approval as other human shapes came into view. "It's good to stay with your team. But I count three of you?"

"Our fourth was chosen to help make that," Weiss said gesturing over her shoulder towards the forward position taking in what was going on in a glance.

He had seen that a lot of the Grimm who were near the back or center of the horde that had already broken out of the forest had turned around to attack the forward position. He saw Yatsuhashi and Port along with the new teacher apparently judging from the ponytail and the shield, and two other girls, probably freshmen since he didn't recognize them. All five of them were working extremely well together, if in a more haphazard fashion then a truly trained team would and giving a very good account of themselves.

"What's the plan?" he asked aloud.

Another freshman zoomed past, with what looked like a gigantic rifle transforming into an equally huge scythe, slicing and dicing through several dozen Grimm. An instant later the small girl switched to rifle mode and used the recoil to bounce backwards, before firing twice more killing two Ursa Major that had just pushed out of the tree line. He nodded again in approval both at the girl's skill and the fact that she had knew the magnificence of a hood and cloak combination.

"We're to get you and your team back into the city," Weiss said, spearing another Beowolf on the end of her rapier before slipping her balde back out, and slicing across the throat of a Creep.

"We're not to join the forward position?"

"No," Weiss said gesturing up past them. Blake joined the man, and the man cocked an eyebrow underneath his hood at her, watching her slice and dice using Gambol Shroud before slinging it back and catching it by its handle twisting it into gun more and firing at several more of them.

"Interesting weapon," he mused, before turning back. Despite his apparent calm, his wound was really paining him. His arm was broken in several places after it was caught between a tree and a charging Boarbatusk. He was also becoming more and more concerned as the seconds trickled past without the rest of his team breaking out of the woodland.

Not realizing this Weiss continued with her explanation. "Professor Goodwitch and Professor Benzaiten are pumping out fire crystal in a circle around the city, then they're going to ignite it."

"A fire break, that's a good idea even if there isn't much natural fuel out there. We tried to do the same thing in the woods, but we were pressed back too quickly to set it up." The older teen replied then breathed a sigh of relief as the first of his team came out of the woods behind him. "How are you going to get us back to the city? Just fight our way through?"

"Not quite." Weiss grunted, pulling out her blade again, already feeling tired. The fight was barely forty minutes in, and she was already getting tired. _Darn it, professor Ranma is right I need more endurance._ "My partner Ruby has a semblance that lets her go near supersonic speed, and I have glyphs that will allow her to go even faster. One of the bullheads with weapons will lay down a cover fire, and we'll simply move down the road in that manner."

"I think we can do better than that," the man replied, looking over to Ruby. "Grab Naomi first!"

"Who's Naomi?" Ruby asked, quickly slicing down another Beowolf Grimm before bringing her scythe back over her shoulder firing at a small Nevermore that had just tried to dive bomb their position. "Bye-bye Birdie!"

"The one with the backpack!"

As the man was talking his three compatriots came out of the woods, one after another. One was a short girl around Blake's size despite being a few years older. She had a distinct punk rocker look, with armor on her thighs and shoulders covering a shirt that said 'because **** you that's why', short spiky black hair and piercings over one eye and in her lap. She was using a short sword in one hand and had some kind of half-headset on her head, complete with a reticule covering one eye. She also had two box like objects, missile launchers or something of that nature, on her lower legs which were currently useless if her loud cursing was anything to go by. "God fucking shit on a stick, team I'm out of gyros!"

"T, Trixie?" Weiss asked staring at the girl, recognizing her from somewhere. "What…"

Blake was suddenly in her face, Gambol Shroud wrapped around a Grimm that had been about to launch at Weiss from the back. "Mind in the game Weiss!"

The second individual out of the woods was also a girl. She was of normal height but was built almost like professor Port, seemingly overweight but hopefully with a lot of muscle considering that she was wearing a backpack taller and broader than she was. She was also wielding a large-hafted tonfa under-slung one arm. Each blow destroyed a Grimm flinging it back with his body broken.

The last to come out was a tall man as tall as Ozpin and with the same body build, but with lanky black hair down to his shoulders. He was wearing old-fashioned looking armor, and wielded a massive BFS (big-f'ing sword), wider than the second girl's thighs, and taller than any of the freshmen girls present, possibly even taller than Yang. In the center of it was a twin barreled rifle, which he had just turned to fire at a Ursa Major to one side, before bringing the sword up and around with a sort of ponderous inevitability to slice through several other Grimm as they leapt at him.

He was the only one of the four that was uninjured, though only the punk rocker and the first man out of the woods looked as if they were in any real distress. The punk rocker was holding her ribs with one hand even as she continued to fight. The girl with the backpack had a limp, but that was all.

"That one," the man with the cloak said, pointing to the overweight girl. "Get her to the forward position!"

Not questioning this Ruby barreled forward, activating her Semblance as Weiss twisted from her own fight, ducking underneath a flying tackle from a Beowolf to create a glyph underneath Ruby. Between one moment and the next she disappeared almost from normal sight, racing forward to slow quickly to a stop right beside the large girl. "Naomi?"

The girl barely turned from where she was smashing her tonfa down into a Deathstalker's head, her other hand having grabbed on of it's pincers and used it as a shield against the thing's stinger. "Who wants to know?" The girls said, in a surprisingly dulcet tone for someone that size.

"Your friend over there told me to get you back to the forward position! Er, is that okay?" Ruby asked, slightly intimidated by the girl's strength.

The girl chanced to glance in his direction than shrugged, holding out a hand wondering what the girl would do. _Some kind of teleportation semblance maybe?_

Her question was answered a second later as Ruby accelerated back the way she came, hitting Weiss' glyph again before zooming forward even faster as the girl opened her mouth to shriek. "AHHHH!"

Yang looked up from where she had just smashed an Ursa into paste as her sister's rose petals appeared before her eyes and the actual girl showed up right behind her. "Hey little sister! Having fun?" Yang grunted, smashing another Grimm, this time a Boarbatusk, down into the ground as it ttied to charge at her.

"Yang!" Ruby whined. "This isn't supposed to be fun, this is serious!"

"Tell that to Ranma," Yang said, pointing over to Ranma, who was laughing and shouting insults at to the Grim as he killed them.

Nora had decided to do the same thing. She was gleefully wielding her hammer as she said "oh so close", "nearly had me there", or "batter up here's the pitch!" as she went around the business of killing Grimm. Beside her Port And Yatsuhashi went about their own task, enjoying themselves while also being nothing short of devastating.

They'd already accounted for more than several hundred Grimm, possibly over a thousand combined. But there were still thousands around them, and they were swiftly becoming enclosed despite the fire coming from the tower trying to keep a lane open for them.

The two sisters were interrupted as the tonfa wielding Naomi cleared a space around her with a wide sweep of her weapon, then reached out with her free hand to grab Ruby by the scruff of her Huntress outfit lifting her up to eye level. "Never do that again!" she growled, her face almost green. That was awful!"

"I'm sorry!" Ruby squeaked, before quickly converting her rifle to scythe mode ripping herself out of the grip to slice into several Grimm attempting to attack them in the that moment. When she spoke again, her voice was calm and clear. "But your friend told me to get you back here as quickly as possible, although, you're a lot lighter than I expected you to be no offense."

"None taken," Naomi said, getting her bearings slightly, and pressing a button on one of her forearms. "My power is gravity, anything that touches me I can make lighter or heavier. It isn't even that aura intensive up to a point. Professor Goodwitch had a theory about that, but I'm not going to going out with it right now. I have work to do."

Naomi's backpack began to unfold, revealing 10 cannons of some kind, mortar launchers Ruby supposed after glancing at them for a second. The sight was almost enough to make her stop moving, almost. "So cool," she mouthed as the mortars began to fire.

Five of them fired on a diagonal towards where the rest of her team were coming in, clearing a path for them somewhat. At that Ruby zoomed forward, her side flashing this way and that completing the work and arriving where the other half of her team and the rest of Naomi's were moving. The other half pointed back towards the city, beginning the process of opening up a way back to it.

The Grimm pressed in on both sides, but now able to concentrate, Nora, and Yang fought on one side, with Port while Yatsuhashi and Ranma were on the other. The five close-quarter specialists continued to slaughter Grimm as Brutus led the others to them.

By this point Weiss had briefed all three of the newcomers, though she was still staring at the punk rocker girl in shock occasionally. As soon as Brutus reached the forward position, he tapped his communicator. "Professor this is Brutus, we're clear. Light it up!"

 **OOOOOOO**

From their position in the still circling bullhead Glynda nodded at Benzaiten from where she was using her powers to see off the groups of Nevermore who occasionally tried to attack them. She couldn't help but notice that the aerial portion of the multitude was noticeably less concentrated now. That should have been a good thing, but Glynda knew that they hadn't thinned out it's numbers to this extent yet. _So where have they gone?_

Beni nodded in turn, looking down at the controls of the bullhead she was now piloting, the two pilots having been dropped off over the city after their first pass. Now empty of all fuel the ship was now listing badly, running on the equivalent of fumes and looking at the controls it was a question whether or not she would even be able to get them back to the city.

She voiced this and Glynda simply shrugged philosophically. "If we crash we'll deal with it then. Right now, the forward position is in danger of being overrun and Waypoint needs some relief. So…" Reaching out with her telekinetic powers she clicked a few air molecules right over the ground below them into a bright flame.

Between one instant and the next the fire dust they had scattered, much of it still dispersed in the air while the rest had dribbled to the ground here and there, ignited. A firewall began to spread from that initial spark to either side.

Below them Yang and Nora leaped back in shock as the fires leapt high into the air in front of them while on the other side Port and Yatsuhashi retreated quickly into the initial impact area where there was no fire dust or crystals to spread the fire. "Oh yeah burn baby burn!" Yang shouted gleefully exchanging a quick high-five with the shorter ginger haired girl.

Now with their side secure they both switched to facing towards the city, Nora using her grenade launcher as Naomi opened up in turn. "Go, go go!" Brutus shouted, and his team moved forward as one, fighting and watching each other's backs with the ease of years of training and experience.

Despite having only a few weeks together at this point Ruby, Weiss and Blake also worked together. Ruby shouted out commands, "Ice Flower" and she and Weiss moved forward, attacking the same group of Grimm in a combo attack. Then Ruby shouted "Ladybug!" and she and Blake attacked in turn.

Seeing this Yang could only smile proudly, happy to see her little sister coming out of her shell. Ranma landed next to her, having largely remained in midair over the horde for the last few moments, wreaking unholy havoc on them with his fists and hatchet. His shield blocked a Beowolf from attacking Yang and she leaped back onto it without needing to be told. "Aleeyoop!"

"Eat hot shotgun shells you buggers!" Yang howled, firing out a fool round of shotguns into a large mass of Creeps to one side of their retreat back to the town. They all died, and she hit the ground, rolling through their dissipating corpses Ember Celica opening up to either side as she threw two more clips of shells into the air, clicking them in place as Nora and Ranma jumped over her in turn hurling themselves into the face of several Ursa, including one Ursa Major.

As they dealt with that Yang took up position on the other side of their advance with Yatsuhashi, as Port moved to take the back position. "HOhohoho, ah, that's the stuff to give the Grimm! Why, this reminds me of when I was up in Atlas' mountains once years ago. There was this small village there which had requested Hunter aid, and…"

Elsewhere however not all was going as well. As Beni had feared, the engine of the bullhead she and Glynda were on began to sputter and go out. And without dust in it's anti-grav coils the bullhead was about as aerodynamic as a brick. "Glynda we're going down! I can't get us back to Waypoint!"

"Then aim for that one Triceragator over there," Glynda replied, having already joined Beni in the cockpit. The target in question was just off their current descent making for one of Waypoint's gates. It was leading four other, slightly smaller Triceragators behind it, all of them making for the same target.

Benzaiten obeyed quickly, pulling the wheel around and aiming the bullhead down towards the triceragator in the lead, hoping to disrupt the group's charge. The creature barely had time to turn his head and stare before the Bullhead smashed into it, bearing it to the ground as it bellowed in agony.

By the time they actually hit Beni and Glynda had left the cockpit and were standing by the bullhead's main door. The two of them leaped out of the doorway right before the bullhead hit the equally large Grimm. Glynda immediately used her TK power to almost float away to where she was able to leap up onto the wall, again using her TK power to aid her jump.

Benzaiten on the other hand came down in the middle of the triceraraptor pack. She kicked out at one, rocking its head slightly to flip away from another which had tried to bit her out of the air then came to a rest staring at a third. "Now, you wouldn't hurt little old me, would you?" she asked, one finger coming up to rest coquettishly on her lips.

The Grimm seemed to blink its red eyes at her for a second but before it could attack her Beni's other hand flashed out with a punch that hit the thing's jaw so hard it's came apart armor, bone and all. With that Grimm down and roaring in agony Beni pulled Saifai Toboe into her hands, turning and blasting two more backwards. The sonic blasts didn't do much damage, rattling the Grimm siege engines but it rocked them backwards, which allowed Beni to concentrate on the first one before its fellows could come to it's aid.

By this time Glynda had ascended up onto the top of the wall, finding this segment almost deserted at present since the B class Hunter team assigned to it had retreated at the sight of the Tirceraraptors making for their section of the wall. Making a mental note to talk to them about their cowardice Glynda turned back to the matter at hand.

She turned, her power reaching out for the downed and now slightly burning wreckage of the Bullhead, tearing it apart within a few seconds. Then she used the parts of it like a wave of energy, moving it this way and that. The bits of former bullhead bludgeoned sliced or pierced all the Grimm Glynda could reach before the parts started to get caught up, but now that the initial work of tearing the bullhead into bits was done Glynda could turn a portion of her attention to other matter. "Tacticus do you read me, are you in position?"

Here the beginning tactics and criminal law teacher said crisply. "I've taken command of the shelters and the automated defenses. The pilots of the armed bullheads report they will be out of ammunition at this rate within 10 minutes or so. I've been trying to get the Vale council on the line to see how long it will take the evacuation forces to get here. But there's some kind of interference, or they're just not taking my calls."

"Keep trying," Glynda said even as she killed dozens of Grimm with every movement of her switch. "Despite what Ranma said, there are simply too many Grimm out here."

The groups of B-grade Hunters and students had been able to keep most of the Grimm from even reaching the walls, but there had been a few that had gotten to the walls. None of those had been able to stay on the walls for more than a few seconds. The anti-air fire was also no sufficient enough to keep the majority of the Nevermores and other aerial Grimm out of the city, but again a few had gotten involved. One of the B-team groups had been assigned to hunting them down.

But despite all their progress there was still a horde of Grimm on this side of the fire break.

 **OOOOOOO**

By this time Jaune and the rest of his team minus Nora had met up with Ragnar and his team. All of them were moving in groups of two or more around the walls to troubled hotspots, letting the automated anti-air fire take care of the Grimm overhead to concentrate on thinning the ground forces.

It was like fighting a wave Jaune thought, his non mecha-shift rifle on his shoulder. You can smash a bit of the water back, or even stand against the wave for a time, but you'd still be surrounded, to eventually be pushed back and then drowned.

He had a decent view of the where Ruby was leading the rest of her team and the retreating group of them towards the city. I hope once they reach here we'll be able to really take it to the bastards. In particular that girl with the mortar launchers will be important. "Team, ammo and aura check."

"Feeling one hundred percent almost, I was only unable to dodge a slash from a Beowolf. My ammunition is running low however, I could do with resupply,." Pyrrha reported.

"Feeling tired, irritable and angry, but I suppose that should be taken as a given. Ammo Is nearly out however." Ren replied next, still moving quickly here and there, Lotus Flower blazing occasionally. But Jaune could tell the fight was already taking it out of him, Ren's endurance just not up to this level of activity for this long.

Sending a request for resupply to Tacticus, Jaune then turned in another direction to watch Glynda and Benzaiten work, slaughtering hundreds, possibly over a thousand Grimm while he watched with some kind of wave attack that looked half aura energy, and half physical form.

That moment of inattention almost cost him, and a sharp clang to one side brought his attention back to his own environment with a start. Pyrrha had interposed her shield between him and a incoming Nevermore feather and she glared at her partner. "Concentrate on the here and now!"

"Sorry," Jaune said shaking his head. Then he paled. "Pyrrha, Ragnar look!"

Nearby the wolf Faunus looked up from where he had been patrolling another portion of the wall on the other side from where Glynda and Beni had landed. To Ragnar's far side from Jaune a portion of the mass of Grimm he and Jaune's team turned, paling at what they saw. Heretofore hidden among a large group of Deathstalkers was one of the triceragators, barreling towards the wall as fast as its legs could carry it now

Before the defenders could do anything the large Grimm slammed into the wall, cratering it, then backed away, and rammed forward again and again and again before fire from the three teens could bring it down, most of their fire having bounced off its armor. One bullet from Pyrrha however found an eye, and the thing fell to the side its brain destroyed.

The damage had been done though, the wall at that portion had been horrendously weakened. And even though the teens all around congregated quickly firing down began to fire down into the horde around it several Deathstalkers hit the wall with their stingers, while other Grimm bodily smashed into it. Hundreds of them died, not even trying to fight back or claw up the wall now, only trying to further weaken this weak point.

Several Giant Nevermores peeled out from the surrounding flock above them, concentrating all of their wing feathers on the group defending this portion of the wall. Uzuri looked up in time to see it, and shout a warning then both teams began to dodge and duck aside rapidly. But this weakened their fire against the land-based Grimm. Two Deathstalkers began to quickly dig underneath the damaged portion of the wall, and several Ursa actually climbed over them to slam bodily into the wall itself, their powerful claws digging deep into the concrete. Behind then came another triceraraptor Grimm.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune shouted pointing it out to the redhead. The girl nodded, her rifle switching from rapid fire to single mode as she crouched down taking aim. Guided both by her skill by her semblance slammed into the triceraraptor's central eye, carrying on to hit it's brain, killing it quickly. Then she turned away, not seeing one of the giant Nevermore peel out of the dive-bombing run on them to move further away, gaining momentum before diving downward. Not at the defenders, but the wall.

This time it was Ragnar, who had just pulled his spear out of a leaping creeper, to notice the danger. "Incoming!"

The wall shattered under the Nevermores' impact, though the Nevermores' own neck broke at the same time. The portion of the wall, already badly battered, collapsed into rubble. The damage didn't spread thankfully, but the wall was still breached.

All around the city the horde of Grimm seemed to shudder for a moment. A second later the majority of the horde on this side of the fire break turned moving towards this break in the defensive line.

Again Ragnar noticed this, staring out with a spyglass as he balanced on top of one of the crenelations of the wall, his team blazing away at the horde now trying to jump over the wreckage of the wall. "Shit! The Grimm are acting in a group!" He said into his headset, and those that knew what that meant all paled or cursed. Grimm could only act intelligently like this if there was an S class type or at best an ancient A class out there to direct them. And that was very bad news.

 **OOOOOOO**

Hearing this over the com Glynda pulled back away from the wall leaping to a nearby rooftop and letting Benzaiten deal with the shattered remnants of the mass of Grimm directly in front of them. Turning slightly she faced toward where the fire line had originated and Brutus and the others forging their way through the horde back towards the city. It was slow going even with all of them working at it, but they were doing it. However Glynda had no eyes for that. She wanted to take a few of the total battle.

Behind them, over the fire and smoke of the fire break Glynda could see the rest of the Grimm just waiting there out of range of the defender's fire, hidden by the firewall and the smoke it created. That lent more credence to Ragnar's words, and she frowned angrily. "Brutus can you read me?"

"Yes Professor," Brutus said calmly despite the chaos around him. That was one of the things Glynda most like about the young man, he was almost always calm and logical. It was an excellent thing to see in a leader.

"The fire break seems to be holding for now, but we have a breach in the wall. And have you noticed…"

"The Grimm are acting as a large pack would not several dozen separate groups," Brutus replied. "We thought there might have been some S class out there when we were fighting the woods, but we never spotted it."

"They'll feed the rest of the horde to us before revealing themselves," Glynda said confidently. That was one characteristic all S-class exhibited: the ability to command other Grimm, and a callous disregard for their welfare. Or it would have been callous, if they were human, but they were not. They were Grimm, and therein lay the issue. "They have also breached the wall in at least two places."

The one that Jaune had seen was one place, but one of the gates had been overwhelmed by another assault from Deathstalkers. They were being held back by a few B-grade teams, but at least two hunters were already down, and more Grimm were pressing in hard. "Coco, get your team to the northern gate as soon as possible, relieve the teams there. Brutus, get back here quickly, we'll need you all on the walls to hold the line."

"Roger Professor." Brutus replied, his voice becoming metallic almost as he disconnected while Coco replied in the affirmative, Velvet and Fox following her as she broke from their current position toward the gate facing deeper into the kingdom of Vale.

With that done Glynda went back to glaring through the smoke of the distant firewall to see what she could of the horde on the other side of it, a furious scowl on her face as she wondered what other tricks they'd see this day.

 **OOOOOOO**

Brutus turned to everyone around him. "You heard the lady. Elis, Tarquin up front. Ruby, you and your team in the lead, let's plow the road!"

Ranma remained at the back, nodding his head at these orders, even as he lashed out killing Grimm with every blow, his hatchet slamming through armor or hide alike. Occasionally his mono-wire lashed out, entangling then cutting Grimm into pieces, but he was conserving it now, having already gone through half the spool in his forarm protector. His shield too was also an offensive weapon as well as a defensive weapon.

Next to him Professor Port also stood, bellowing with laughter as he slew Grimm with fist or blunderbuss/axe expounding volubly between blows how he had faced a similar experience years ago. The man might be a talker, but he was also a doer, as evidenced by the number of Grimm he slew.

With the fire break was in place, Ranma and the others around him felt a stirring of optimism despite the two breaks in the wall Glynda had reported. With the only break in the fire line being their former position, Naomi and any other mortar users could do a tremendous amount of damage to the horde of Grimm trying to get at the city from beyond the fire break, while the rest of the defenders worked on renewing the portions of the Grimm horde that it already moved past the fire break. That group had already spread out too much for the mortar rounds to do much damage, but RWB and the two seniors were cutting through them with relative ease.

It also did not escape Ranma's notice that the majority of the Grimm remaining on this side of the firewall were those with natural armor: Ursa and Ursa Majors, Deathstalkers and two triceragators standing tall and imposing over the rest of their brethren, and thus drawing fire. Brutus had realized the same thing, and Ruby her team and Naomi had already raced ahead, followed quickly Nora. With her grenade launcher, she could join in with the mortar rounds easily enough, and had long since run out of ammo available on her right now. Waypoint though should have some ammo for her, even if they wouldn't be filled with her special 'pretty pink baboom' mix.

Nora protested but Brutus simply pointed and said, "go." Nora tried to appeal to Ranma, but he shook his head indicating she should obey the other young man.

In return Brutus slotted into Nora's place alongside Yang, his skin becoming metallic almost as Ranma watched. "So is that your semblance?" Yang asked before Ranma could.

"Yes," Brutus said simply, standing and taking a blow from one Deathstalker while his massive sword sliced the claw off another. He leaped up over another blow, his sword coming down in a flash that sliced through the Deathstalker's stinger halfway down its length before burying itself in the Deathstalker's back. He took another blow there, but turned and wheeled, smacking aside the second's stinger before it could try to sting him again and firing his sword's rifle into the Grimm's face. Yang was there a millisecond later, finishing it off with a blow to the side of the face that caved it in, using two shotgun shells to power her punch further.

Brutus leaped off, moving on, as the five of them closed ranks further now the RWB and his own three teammates had forged on. "My semblance is the Adamant! As long as my aura lasts, I am nearly invulnerable."

"WOOWweee, so staying hard isn't a problem for you then?" Yang joked, before swinging out and around Brutus to engage several Ursa Majors, killing them all quickly as the party continued their way to through the horde. The hole that Ruby and her team had made to break out with Naomi had already closed as much as it could given how scattered the Grimm on this side of the firewall were, but their progress was still decently quick.

"You'd have to ask my girlfriend about that one I'm afraid," Brutus replied, no hint of a blush on his face as he replied, then he laughed. "Sorry, I've dealt with a year of having Coco around, you're jokes are going to have to be X-rated to get a rise out of me. Try Naomi if that's what you're looking for."

Their banter was interrupted as the battle took a sudden and dangerous turn for the worst.

 **OOOOOOO**

From her vantage point Glynda watched it happen, and still didn't believe what she was seeing for a few seconds. Because the horde on the other side of the firewall, the Deathstalkers, the Beowolves and the Ursa all dug into the ground and began to fling rocks dirt and churned up ground it at the fire.

"W, what?" Glynda exclaimed staring at what was going on. "How!?" She broke off abruptly shaking her head. S-class, we knew there had to be one here at some point, but this is…" Shaking her head once more even more violently Glynda turned her attention to her communicator. "Tacticus, do we have an update on the evacuation ships?"

"Negative! The Vale Council has ordered the fleet to wait until the Atlesian Air Fleet arrives to provide defense. We were told to hold until then. And the Vacuo Council is sending us several Hunter teams, but doesn't have any air assets which could be used to evacuate the populace within more than a day's flight away."

Glynda clenched her jaw tightly on the words she wanted to say, but on the other end of the line Tacticus still flinched when she spoke. "When this is over, I am going to have a long, personal talk with each councilor in turn about their duty to the nation, and about their, their old womanly attitude! At least tell me Ironwood and his bully-boys are going to be here soon?"

"Eta six hours."

Falling silent at Tacticus' glum response, Glynda stared out over the battlefield as huge swaths of the firewall went out. "This battle will be over long before they arrive then."

 **OOOOOOO**

One group had broken the firewall near where Ranma and group was slowly making their way back to the city and the Grimm there roared, charging forward quickly. Ranma, who had just used a Deathstalker's attempt to spit him with its stinger to flipped himself high up into the air and uses mono wire to slice through several Grimm saw this, and cursed, coming down quickly to bounce off the same Deathstalker's stinger lightly before hurling himself forward into the incoming force, bouncing up and around them, his Mono wire flying out to catch and garrote several slicing through more, his fists and feet flying, his hatchet smashing into and through the skull of a Ursa major, as he kicked a Boarbatusk like it was a football, smashing it into several others.

Hurling his shield he slammed it into another incoming Ursa Major that looked positively ancient, almost to the point where it would evolve, sending it skidding backwards but with cracked armor. "Port! Hurry them up, something's changed!" Ranma roared over the tumult of battle, before turning to his communicator. "Glynda, what's going on!?"

"They put out the fire break in places! There's more of the horde able to attack you now, and us!" Indeed all around the beleaguered city the fight had escalated once again, and a goodly portion of the Grimm were now making straight for the weaknesses already wrought in the wall.

This had forced Naomi and the newly arrived team of Ruby Weiss and Blake to redirect their fire from around Ranma's group to trying to thin the forces attacking those weak points. Two of the antiair guns also turned their attention on the land portion of the horde, weakening the aerial defenses but it was a necessary trade-off

"There definitely is at least an S-class here directing these Grimm. The only good information is they haven't been able to dig underneath the walls, and we have only lost a few men so far." Glynda replied, gritting her teeth even as she said that. Those Hunters had once been her students after all, and though never quite as good as she would have liked them to be, that hardly mattered to her feeling of loss.

Just then Ranma wheeled as Yatsuhashi bellowed in pain and he turned just in time to see the giant sophomore get blown off his feet, his sword shattering under a blow. He still had aura of course so the shrapnel from his sword didn't do much, but it was clear that the big man was hurting as he barely was able to roll with the blow, getting to his feet woozily to face whatever had hit him.

What that was, was a thing out of nightmare. It was only a few feet taller than Yatsuhashi, standing there on its spider legs. Indeed its entire lower body was that of a spider, with large spindly legs like that of a tarantula covered with armor from the toes up to their knees, with spikes sticking out here and there. Its upper body however was that of a man, an armored man covered with bony armor with heavy striations here and there of red indicating its age and strength just like that on it's legs.

The thing had eight eyes, all of them protected by heavy bony ridges and four arms, all powerful looking and longer than even Yatsuhashi's and multi-jointed. The lower set of arms ended in curved blades that looked almost like scythes, while the upper duo had human looking hands tipped with inch-long claws. It's mouth had a face full of fangs that would've done credit to a velociraptor.

The Dryder was an S-class Grimm that was almost never seen in Vale, preferring the distant mountains well away from any human nation. But when it appeared, death followed, though it's precise capabilities were largely unknown save the general S-class abilities and rumor that said it was even more intelligent than most S-class.

The Dryder snarled a challenge and barreled forward it's legs and arms flashing out to attack Port, who had stepped forward to protect the downed student. He grunted as the thing struck, but blocked its blows riposting quickly, but his own blow was smacked wide, and he had to leap back as the second scythe sought his chest.

It was as if the sight of the S class Grimm sucked all the hope and feeling out of the air around the city. And now several dozen A-class Grimm appeared, moving forward with ponderous menace. Four Hydra reared up out from beyond the smoke and fire waiting near the back of the horde, along with five Tarantkillas and masses of the smaller Arachnoids.

Arachnoids were not A-class Grimm, indeed they were the lowest level of spider-type Grimm, the equivalent of Beowolves. However there were thousands of them, and they could climb walls as easily as walking on the ground. On the other hand Tarantkillas were the next form of evolution for the spider Grimm. They stood as tall as two stories, and could fire webbing from their abdomens which could have diverse effects. They looked like spiders with grasping claws of a crab on their thoraxes and their bite was poisonous.

If the S-class Dryder were historically known as being very smart, the A-class Hydras were known to be the exact opposite. Dangerous, deadly combatants and powerful foes, they had the multiple heads and regeneration of the ancient Hdyra myth, but they were dumb as posts, hence why they were termed only A-class. They were however highly aggressive however, so once battle was joined they were just as tough to deal with as most S-class. They were also deathly afraid of fire, hence why the two involved in this attack were still staying back until the final bits of the firewall was put out.

Besides these new combatants came hundreds, thousands more Grimm of the more populous varieties with a few other hidden dangers here and there throughout the horde.

Despair filled the defenders, and fear for the first time hit even the strongest of their hearts. Outside the city Brutus fell back, Yang crumpled a little retreating with the senior student in good order But her hair was no longer flashing fire, and the life had seemed to go out of them. the effect was felt on the wall too. The B-grade hunters fell to their knees in despair. Jaune, Ruby and the other students all looked at one another, even Ruby feeling fear for the first time, while Pyrrha was staring at the Hydras, rage and horror in her eyes.

In one small corner a group of civilians had come out of the emergency bunkers. They were of the breed known as reporters, a sub-variety of humans who were known to have an almost ungodly amount of self-confidence in their ability to remain untouched by anything around them since their role was simply to record. Now most of them were literally pissing themselves, all thoughts of seeing the valiant defenders in action or perhaps filming Pyrrha Nikos, international celebrity in action flown from their minds. And it was worse within the bunkers. Children cried, men stumbled, women wailed as fear and certain doom pressed into their minds.

Everyone there knew they had just lost. Even if the evacuation had already begun, there was no way they would've been able to evacuate everyone remaining before the main bulk of the Grimm forces could reach the walls. No one was willing to just give up, but fear had gripped them all, robbing them of their strength.

The only one who didn't give into that despair was Ranma. He knew S classes could create this aura of despair, he'd felt it occasionally in the wilds, but he also knew how to fight them. _Dammit, I hate what this does to me but, nothing for it._

Still leaping and kicking and fighting Ranma began a mantra as he reached within and unlocked a certain door within him. No one could hear what he said until the final few words, which he roared out at the top of his lungs. "Thus I say raise your head, for spring has come and spring is the hope of man!"

With his activation mantra finished, Ranma lit up like a giant bonfire of blue power. Only Yang was close enough to see other changes through his blazing aura. Ranma's hair had lengthened somewhat, his face had changed slightly becoming almost feminine but not quite. It was just noticeable enough for her to see something had happened and wonder what was going on. "What the hell…"

The next instant Ranma's hands flashed forward and he shouted "Moko Ha Reiku!" A huge beam of life energy lashed out from his hands searing through the horde of Grimm in front of him.

And as those Grimm died and others screamed in rage and fear, the aura of despair vanished from every heart there. Everyone felt it, an uplifting surge of energy and power, as if they were all fresh suddenly, able to take on the world. Everyone the whole city over began to fight even harder and stronger, as Ranma turned to the Dryder who had realized what had happened.

The two locked eyes, then Ranma was in the S class Grimm's face having used Port's shoulder as a springboard, his fist cocked back slamming into its head with enough force to shatter the bone armor there and pulp one of it's eyes. The S class tried to grab at him, but Ranma flipped himself up with a kick to the sternum, his shield coming down to block a few blows from one side, as he kicked out again, catching the thing lightly in the side of the stomach. "Port get them back to the city! I'll take this thing!"

"You do know that goes entirely against the whole teamwork thing right?" Port said laconically, pushing through his own momentary despair. A second later h turned roaring a challenge as he barreled into a group of Ursa that was in the way of them getting to the city. Then he held up a hand, blocking a massive spear of bone staring as two Grimm crashed hurled several other Grimm out of their way, mostly Creeps and Beowolf's, to stand there snarling head and shoulders above him.

The two creatures in front of him looked somewhat like the ancient Ursa Major Ruby, Ren, Weiss and Nora had faced during their initiation. But they were even larger, both in height and in width across the shoulders. Their spikes along their backs and shoulders were larger, more pointed, and with odd striations of red where they met the rest of the bear-like Grimm's armor. Their mouths were also slightly larger and their red eyes seem to glow with a malevolent fury.

"At last a challenge!" Port said, holding his blunderbuss on one shoulder for a moment cockily. "Come then creatures and face the Juggernaut! HOHOHOHOH!"

With the two teachers engaging the most dangerous threats nearby Brutus gathered Yatsuhashi and Yang, lifting the other young man onto his feet easily as he shouted at Yang. "Time we left Blondie!"

Yang broke off from fighting a pack of Beowolves to glance over at him then over to where Ranma was dueling with the S class Dryder, who was backing away wildly now, putting other Grimm in his way and trying to use its arms and legs to good effect. But Ranma was dancing around the thing, it simply wasn't fast enough to tag him and every time it tried, Ranma would use the impetus of the blow to remain in the air, which negated most of the horde around them.

To the other side Port had just hurled one of the Jambavan's aside going chest to chest with the other, hands and paws locked in wrestling holds of all things. As she watched the first Jambavan came back in only for Port to free an arm and duck under its slashing paw, grabbing up a leg and upending it before the second knocked him off balance. The rotund professor, and after today Yang would never look at him quite the same, seemed to be laughing as they grappled, his booming laugh rising over the beasts' snarl.

"Yeah…" she said slowly "I think they've got this."

Ranma flipped away, bouncing off one blow before blinking as the Dryder reared up slightly and fired something from below its thorax at him. Webbing shot into his face, but Ranma burned through it. Not quickly however, it still carried him down to the ground, but it didn't stop him from destroying the few nearby Grimm tried to take advantage of his. By the time he dealt with the last one, a Beowolf would try to chop one his head however the Dryder had retreated further into the horde.

Seeing this Ranma snarled, going after it knowing that this battle wouldn't end until that one was dealt with. With Spring's aura now doing its job, there was no fear or despair to draw the grinning, it was only the Dryder spell keeping them here. _It dies, and this battle is over!_

 **OOOOOOO**

"Over here Yang!" Ruby shouted from on top of the wall, though she doubted her sister could hear her over the tumult of the battle. She fired down at one of the Grimm trying to attack her sister, then went to rapid fire, wishing that her Christian rose had a true rapid fire version rather than simply switching to a rifle's normal rate of fire rather than a sniper rifle's. "Don't worry baby, I'll figure it out eventually." She crooned to Crescent Rose as she continued to fire at the horde.

The gates were the scene of some of the toughest fighting so far except right in front of Ruby and her team. Coco's team was holding one with the help of the local B-grade Hunters. The other, the one that had yet to be breached, was being defended by teams SAIL and GRNG, pulled off evacuation duty to try and hold the walls.

And here, Ruby's trio and the three seniors had thrown themselves into defending the breach in the walls with teams RUST and JNR.

But it was Glynda and Beni who was making the most difference and Ruby knew it. The arachnoids would have spelled certain doom if they had been able to reach the walls, able to climb up them so easily the defenders would have been swamped. But Glynda and Beni were hurling out long range attacks like they were cookies, destroying or beating back the entire creepy mass of the spider things.

The rest of Brutus' team was here with Ruby and company still, with Naomi firing as fast as she could load her mortar cannons. Unfortunately, she was now down to barely one shot each, and Nora had run out of grenades long since. In fact, they were all near to running on empty save for Ruby, who still had about 10 more shots on her rifle, and Weiss, who didn't use bullets. But in her case she was running low on dust very quickly.

Nearby Jaune had realized this too, since his entire team as well as Ragnar's was now out of ammunition. He turned away from the breach for a moment to grab at his scroll. "To anyone listening, teams RWBY and teams JNPR and BELT need rearming A freaking SAP! Bring dust infused rounds to the northwest sector of the wall, and as much dust as you can manage, **now** or we are done!"

For a moment the line was silent, then Tacitus' voice rang out. "Roger that, we're getting low on ammunition everywhere Jaune, but we'll send you what we can, sorry your last request was rerouted to team SAIL."

"Thanks Professor!" Jaune muttered, then bounced to his feet, his sword coming around in an arc to impact a Beowolf that had just jumped up off one of its fellows shoulders to try and ascend the rubble. The arc family blade, Crocea Mors, sliced cleanly through the beast, and he grinned as it's rapidly decomposing form fell backwards. "Get that shit outta here!"

"You said a dirty word!" Ruby gasped even as she fired and another Grimm.

Everyone turned to her for a second and deadpanned. "So not the time!"

Ruby blushed, shaking her head. "There's no need to be crude."

"We're in a fight for our lives and the lives of thousands of people behind us," Jaune said rather caustically as he struck another Beowolf. "I think we can afford to be a little crude."

Nearby Ragnar had backed away from the wall for a moment, heaving a sigh as he worked out his wrist, which are taken a blow from a Beowolf a second ago. His aura was still high however, it'd simply stunned a little. He also wanted to take the time to look at the overall battle. It had definitely picked up everywhere, but Ragnar, like the rest of his team and all of the other people in the city still felt uplifted almost and were fighting as hard as they would have if they were fresh.

That was why when he saw what I a crowd of Boarbatusks gathering in front of one of the already damaged portions of the wall between his current position and the gate being defended by team CFV, he didn't panic. Or if he did, he panicked with direction. Quickly looking around he noticed who was in the area. "Nathan Reidrect fire! Look over to the south southeast! Coco, can you range from where you are?"

From her position on top of the gatehouse Coco turned in that direction, looking up from where she had been reloading her Gatling gun. Over 100 Boarbatusks had gathered there, and were racing forward in a stampede towards the damaged portion of the wall. "Crap that's not good!" she muttered, bringing her Gatling gun up. "Eat hot dust you bastars!"

"Anyone with ammunition fire on those Boarbatusks!" Ragnar shouted into his communicator.

Unfortunately, Several Nevermores and Giant Nevermores attacked the wall just then, forcing the defenders to dodge their incoming feathers. Coco in particular had to duck aside. Even so her Gatling gun 'brapping' out a single thousand bullet salvo which decimated the incoming Boarbatusks, but not enough.

Jaune saw this, and also saw that Naomi had already expended her last mortar, and that all of them were now out of bullets. "Crap! Tacitus, were about to be breached again! We have about 50 Boarbatusks heading straight for one of the damaged sections of the wall, and after then there's another triceragator coming in." He shouted aloud, "Anyone who can kill that Tirceraraptor!" before turning back to his scroll, racing along to place himself and his team at the weak point, leaving behind the RBW Naomi and even Ragnar.

"Roger that, still Brutus and the rest should be there soon judging from his report. Hold the line Ragnar, we can still win this!"

Jaune chuckled dryly, grabbing up his sword as he stood at the wall almost absentmindedly smashing a nevermore feather out of the air above him. "Since when did we go from surviving this to winning?" Looking out past the nearby horde he saw the blue glow of the Azure Ward barreling through the horde, his aura attacks flaring out in every direction to incinerate Grimm as he went after the Dryder, and he knew his answer was there.

Now they just had to hold until the Azure Warden could do his business. The wall underneath him shook as the Boarbatusks, having ducked into their spinning deadly dervish slammed a dozen of them at a time into their crack in the wall. The crack shivered, concrete shattering underneath the impact, and began to give way, but the triceraraptor raptor did not reach the wall, perforated by a shot from Ruby. "I'm out!" she shouted, her rifle switching forms into her scythe mode.

The wall came down, the concrete almost crumbling under the repeated blows, now it was simply amount as Jaune regained his footing. Leaping down from the crumbling portion down onto the mound of rubble he held the ground there for a second as a several Beowolf tried to get past him quickly, then the rest of the Grimm outside seemed to realize that they'd finally breached the wall, and roared, charging forward.

"Ren stay up there, Pyrrha with me!" Jaune ordered his sword and shield flashing, even as other hits got through, his aura allowing him to absorb them all and keep his feet. "Coco, you mind if a borrow Fox over here, and do you still have ammo?"

"Yep" the girl said, lifting up her Gatling gun again over the wall to start thinning the herd, leaving the gate only protected by its automated defenses for a moment. "Go with him Fox hold that breach!"

From where he had been standing beside her Fox looked at her one eyebrow raised and she shrugged. "I'll be fine. Velvet and I can handle it, and Yatsuhashi should be arriving soon. And you're no use up here anyway"

Fox growled, and Coco shivered a little, her lips twitching into a lascivious smirk. _Oh yes, tonight's gonna be fun, if we have any energy left anyway._

She watched as Fox leaped down into the breach, then turned bringing her Gatling gun up and around as it mecha-formed back into its handbag form to smash a Creep the had just leaped over the wall. "Yeah no, not going to happen your creepy fucks." she deadpanned. With that her Gatling gun reopened, and she began to fire once again.

"Mésa stin paravíasi! (Into the breach)" Pyrrha roared sounding almost happy as she dove down slamming shield first into a Ursa before pushing off the interior of Akuo whirling around to bring Milo around in javelin mode to strike at another, then switching into its xiphos form to stab a third.

Watching Jaune and Pyrrha fight was a study in contrasts. Pyrrha was constantly moving up down and around, her weapon shifting from javelin to xiphos and back again with the smoothness and efficiency that spoke of both training and extremely good maintenance. She sliced cut, flashed this way and that her shield a part of her offense and defense as one, death given artistic form. It was almost like watching a dancer, a dance of death which Pyrrha would've been the first to tell you was rather accurate given some of her earlier training

Jaune in contrast was a rock. He stood on top of the mound of rubble, his shield flitting this way and that to block what blows it could, though he was fully capable of simply tanking shots in order to return his own. His sword work was okay, fast enough to hit, hard enough to do damage. He used both the point and the side pf his sword, but there was nothing special there. What was special was the fact that Crocea Mors sliced through most Grimm armor that faced him let alone the skin of the various Grimm, and he simply refused to move.

They two of them held the line. The others, now without any ammo, used hit and run tactics while Weiss used the last of her dust a few times to blunt the Grimm's numbers. Fox joined them adding his own unique style to the contest as Brutus and the others came within sight of the breach through the horde and a Hunter carrying as much ammo as he could on his person raced through the town's streets toward them.

 **OOOOOOO**

"Moko Takabashi!" Ranma growled, beginning to get fed up after chasing the Dryder through the horde from one end to another. Dozens of Grimm i died screaming and others shied away roaring in apparent agony from this ki base assault and Ranma barreled through the gap towards his target.

It seemed to snarl, waving its hands to either side and more Grimm tried to get between them, as Dryder itself again tried to fire webbing at him, but Ranma ducked underneath, his mono-wire coming up in a whirl to grab onto one of the thing's arms. It's armor stopped the mono-wire from slicing deeply but it still dug in, and Ranma reeled himself forward, hurling his shield forward to impact the thing's face. The Dryder's head rang as the shield bounced, and Ranma kicked hard as he arrived, sending both of his feet into the Dryder's chest to flip himself around and down onto the ground. Once there, he intended to roll underneath the thing and start shopping at its legs.

He was interrupted in this attempt however as several Creeps got his way, and the larger creature used this break back to away again for just a moment. Ranma looked over it after dealing with the Creeps and noticed several other arachnid shaped Grimm had arrived, large ones now which he recognized as Tarantkillas.

A second after he noticed them they all fired webbing at him and Ranma groaned realizing he was trapped within them. _They really are smarter than your average Grimm._ At the same time the Dryder and two of the oldest looking, IE the ones most covered with armor, of the tarantkillas started to fire off small spikes of bone armor from their legs. Ranma grunted as they hit, but they weren't going nearly far enough to break his skin, just enough to cause some bruising.

Ranma's aura began to burn away the webbing almost immediately, but some of it seemed to be smeared with some kind of deadening agent. Ranma's constitution was up to dealing with it, but it slowed him down slightly.

Actually that was a contact poison, a Tarantkilla could poison via bite or secreting a special solution onto its webs. But it couldn't impact Ranma's constitution more than making him feel sluggish.

Suddenly the Dryder stopped trying to escape closing as Ranma began to burn his way out of the webbing. It moved faster than it had moved before, and its scythes slashed forward. Ranma grunted in agony as one found his side hurling him through the horde as the other Grimm all around tried to pile in. He punched and kicked, using his shield for a moment protect his face as he reared up onto his feet again kicking out hard to send a Beowolf flying then leaping up into the air grabbing the leg of one of the Tarantkillas and wrenching it aside to smash into another one. Blows began to get through his defenses all around, but Rama ignored them, his wounds, such as they were so far, healing almost as soon as they were formed.

A punch from the Dryder got through, breaking ribs, but they healed. A slash opened up his shoulder tearing through his body armor, but a kick sent it retreating for a second it's head ringing while Ranma's wounds healed as the Grimm watched in something approaching biblical fury.

Spring's gift had of course been her power. Normally a man would not be able to use the power of the Four Maidens, it being usable only by women since it had first been found. However, Ranma still had a sort of genetic echo within him of his curse, and Spring had been able to pass her power on to him because of that. They had discussed his curse, and Spring had hoped that would be the case, but of course there was no way to test that.

In the normal way of things Spring was actually the least combat applicable of the four powers. Spring had been a deadly warrior because she had lived so long and become so through training and experience. Her power was also simple in comparison to say Autumn's power. let alone Winter's, easily the most deadly of the Four Seasons. She couldn't control the weather, she couldn't control air or fire and the power of spring gave its users no special understanding of nature or anything of that. What it did do, was connect the individual straight to the life energy of the planet itself. As long as the user's willpower was strong enough, her own, or in this case his, life energy would refill whenever he called upon the power of spring aiding his aura reserves and healing speed in turn. Spring's ability also imbued others with a sense of confidence, uplifting them almost as much as the Grimm could strain their emotions.

But that was all. Of course that would have been enough to make a lot of warriors extremely effective, and it certainly had done so eventually with Spring as well. But Ranma was something else entirely. He had weaponized his use of ki to an extent that no one on Remnant could match.

He showed this now, his hands flashing with attacks, destroying whole troops of Grimm, his aura flaring up so much that even as the Grimm attacked him trying to do damage, they burned at the touch. Soon only the spider types remained around him, the rest of the horde pulling back in fear, even the S-ranked Grimm unwilling or unable to face Ranma's aura. The Dryder couldn't control them as well as it could its own sub-breed.

Eventually Ranma won clear straight towards the Dryder his fist cocked back slamming into one of its legs shattering the bone armor over its kneecap and then he underneath. The Dryder squalled, one of its scythes coming down again, but they missed. The follow-on blow from his other arm on that side caught Ranma in his head as he dodged to the side from the first blow, hurling him backwards his head ringing and turning him around entirely. Another blow cut into Ranma's armor shredding it as if it was paper as well as the skin underneath. Luckily it missed his spine, and Ranma turned his skin already healing.

While it did so Ranma lifted himself up onto one leg kicking out hard at another Tarantkilla, shattering its thorax with a single kick as he used the momentum to backwards, towards the Dryder's legs. The Dryder set itself to take the impact, but Ranma twisted to one side and slipped between two of its legs.

Underneath the Dryder, Ranma lashed out with his shield, smashing into one of its legs with the side of the shield. That nearly sliced straight through the skin, and when he slammed his fist into the side of the same knee it broke, spurting whatever it was that Grimm used as blood before it dissipated in the air.

"GAAAAHARA!" The Dryder squealed, leaping away but Ranma had gripped his target leg with both hands, and between that and the Dryders own attempt to leap away the leg was ripped out of its sockets and the Dryder nearly stumbled before it corrected. In turn Ranma nearly lost his shield, and another scythe blow slammed into his side, breaking ribs in turn.

Another two Taranatkillas closed quickly, fangs gaping. One of them ate Ranma's shield for his trouble. And the other found it's legs bound by mono-wire, which at a twitch from Ranma;s wrist sliced into and through the legs in question, dumping the now legless Grimm to the ground.

The Dryder and Ranma were now alone, the Tarantkillas all dealt with, the rest of the Grimm keeping their distance. Instead they hurled themselves towards the city instead with the two Hydras leading the charge now that much of the firewall had been dealt with.

The two of them went at it hammer and tongs, with Ranma leaping all around and the Dryder slowly acclimatizing to his mobility. More attacks got through to Ranma's body, but he took them in order to return his own. His healing ability kept on coming to his rescue as he kept using Spring's gift, but the Dryder had no such ability. Slowly the Grimm began to back away, but Ranma pressed his advantage grimly.

 **OOOOOOO**

Back on the walls, the fight was still desperate. A full sixth of the horde, and thankfully the three S-class in the battle had peeled off to fight Port and Ranma, which despite pinning the defender's best fighters down had taken a lot of the pressure off, and the Hunters were all still fighting. No despair, no fear could break through whatever Ranma had done to them and they all, from the least skilled to the greatest fought like champions..

Sighing Glynda let her riding crop fall to her side as she stared at the vile black mass that had been a large portion of the arachnoids in the attacking Grimm. A few had broken through her and Beni's assault to reach the wall, but the defenders had dealt with them.

That begs the question of how the Grimm's aura of despair was broken… Glynda mused. She looked out past the nearby area of the city out toward Ranma. _What was that? Was that his Semblance somehow, but then what are those attacks he uses? Professor Ozpin thought something was unusual about Ranma, but I wonder if even he had any idea of this… We might just, we might just win this!_

By her side Beni let Saifa Toboe rest on the ground turning off her portable speakers. She was somewhat close now to Aura exhaustion, having conjured thousands of swords, simple bullets, rocks and other things into being in the past few hours before she exchanged a wan smile with Glynda. Beni's thoughts however were not nearly as far thinking as Glynda's. _Now if the ammo holds out we can hold the wall while Port and Ranma deal with those S-class out there. Darn it, I would rather have liked to see how I stacked up to at least one of them, but needs must._

As if her thoughts had summoned them, the four Hydras finally charged forward, roaring and bellowing from all three of their heads. Beni turned away from her sifu to stare up into the sky. "Damnit, that wasn't a request!"

Shaking her head at her young protégé's odd action Glynda turned racing and leaping away over Waypoint's rooftops toward one of the two Hydras that was aiming straight to the gate that hadn't yet fallen. "Come on, GRNG won't be able to handle that beast on their own!"

One other peeled off to attack the downed gate, but Coco and her team were there, once more together. With Velvet and her special ability Glynda knew that the Hydra and the forces behind it wouldn't be able to overcome them.

The last two charged straight at the two breaks in the wall. Seeing this, Glynda could only hope that BAIN, RUST and RWBY could hold them off.

 **OOOOOOO**

Brutus had quickly taken local command holding the older breach alone against the horde while Alyssa and Ian guarded his flanks. Ragnar's squad had been able to make the most out of the local supplies and was on the wall along with Naomi, Ruby and Nora, doing what they could to slaughter as many Grimm as they could before they hit the two breaches. Pyrrha and Yang were in the other breach now, while the rest of their teams guarded their backs and Jaune, even his aura exhausted by this point rested behind them.

All of them were feeling the impact of the battle now, which had been going on for at least two hours since the group from Beacon had arrived. They weren't feeling it as much as BAIN of course who had been fighting for several hours more than they had, but they were still all feeling exhaustion creeping up on them. There was a big difference between training and a real battle, and those with limited endurance, like Ruby, Weiss and Ren, were nearly dead on their feet at this point.

"Shit! Here comes the Hydras!" Naomi shouted, directing her mortar fire at the massive beasts. But their central body had heavy armor, almost up to a Goliath's standard which also protected its legs. The heads could be blown into so much offal but unless you could destroy all three the one you attacked would regrow quickly. They thankfully wouldn't grow more heads when they did, though that was a limited blessing at best.

One of Nora's grenades found an open mouth and the best's head exploded. "Oh yeah, what a shot!"

"It only counts if you call it Nora," Ren reminded the girl.

"Oh that's BS Renny, and you know it!" Nora shouted back only to gape when the head of the Grimm regenerated as she watched. "Wh, that's so not fair, are they allowed to do that? That's cheating!"

Neither Naomi nor any of the other shooters had any more luck on this front, and the two Hydra's rammed bodily into the wall, their heads snapping down to try and eat the defenders still on the wall in front of them. Brutus was hammered back out of the breach he'd been defending, but his team were able to dodge the heads well enough hand they closed in quickly with Ragnar's team falling back at his orders to concentrate on the Grimm now boiling over the widened breach in the wall.

At the other breach however, which also widened, the Hydra had much better luck.

"GAAHH Weiss cried out as she was hurled backward off the wall by a headbutt that broke through what little aura she had left. Blake quickly subsittude a clone, backing away but even so this only let her escape the central head's maw, not the impetus of its nose slamming into her. Blake too fell backwards flung off the wall. But she still landed on her feet with almost preternatural grace. Weiss would have fallen head first to the ground if Ruby hadn't leaped off the wall in time to catch her, leaping after her then using Crescent Rose' recoil to slow their descent. Ren and Nora too had been hit, neither of them able to get out of the way fast enough.

"REN!" Immediately Nora got up and pulled Ren back, his aura gone and bleeding from several places while Ruby did the same for Weiss. Nora's aura too was pracitlly gone, and she had twisted her arm when she landed, leaving it hanging at her side.

Ruby was slightly better off, but was so tired she was almost falling asleep even as she dragged her partner away. "Yang, everyone retreat, we need to get some space, let the teachers handle this!" Ruby never thought she would ever have said those words, but she was just **so** tired right now.

"Not an option little sister!" Yang shouted, shaking her head as she rolled where she had landed, already rearming Ember Celica.

Pyrrha and Yang had been forced to retreat from the breach as the mass of the hydra hit the wall, and now the two beleaguered teams found themselves almost alone facing an A-class Grimm and about fifty other Grimm with little help. Terence and Uzuri turned from helping the rest of their team and Brutus to fire on the incoming Grimm, but that still left the Hydra and a few dozen other Grimm for Jaune, Blake, Pyrrha and Yang to deal with.

"Ha, hahaahaha! Everyone else, deal with the other Grimm, I have this one!" Despite the battle so far, despite the fact they'd just lost control of the wall, Pyrrha suddenly laughed gaily, her eyes alight with delight as she faced up to the towering Hydra, standing directly in front of it. She had a particular grudge against this breed, and had never thought to challenge one so soon in her training, but neither was she going to shirk from the contest.

"Eímai o Pyrrha Nikos Tou fthinopórou tou Nike! Chorépste mazí mou plasma! (I am Pyrrha Nikos of the vale of Nike! Dance with me creature!)" She shouted, her voice clear and unafraid, and she began to repeat her words, circling the creature as she banged Milo against Akuo. "Dance with me, dance with me!"

The Hydra immediately took her up on the challenge roaring and lowering its heads, snapping at her one after another. Pyrrha rolled underneath the first spun around the second and nearly speared the third in the eye after leaping up over its attempt to eat her in turn. She then had to raise Akuo to block a forepaw from the four-legged Grimm.

The blow was powerful and threw her back, but Pyrrha rolled with it dodging more attacks and looking for a chance to strike. Then the nearest head was rocked back by a blast of a shotgun shell smashing into its head.

"Heh, now, now Red. You ain't the only gal who wants to play with the big boy," Yang said cockily moving forward to join her. "Blake, Jaune take out the others and join us when you can, Pyrrha and I will hold this thing off."

The two women had no time to make up a plan or attempt to communicate at all as the Hydra roared forward, trying to stamp Pyrrha into the ground as two of it's head's lashed out toward Yang. Yang dodged to one side, letting the two heads smashed into the building behind her then rocketed forward, Ember Celica smashing into the large Grimm's chest right where it met the three powerful necks without any real success. The Grimm's armor was just too strong.

She was then forced to dodge the creature's claws. Hydras had large claws on their forward limbs, but mostly they were there just to provide close in defense as their heads did the eating/fighting.

Yang rolled to the side as Pyrrha leaped over another head attacking her, hurling Milo down in javelin form to spear the Grimm's paw. As the Hydra screamed from all three of it's heads Yang leaped up using the top of the javelin as a stepping stone. Once in the air Yang's fist shot out, slamming into the side of one of the beast's head.

A second later however Yang was nearly eaten by the middle head as the third head tried to do the same to Pyrrha. Pyrrha was able to get her shield up in time to block the attempt to eat her, but then found herself hurled through the air as the thing bit down on her shield, lifting her and flinging her away.

Getting her feet behind her Pyrrha hit the wall of the building behind her then used her semblance to pull Milo out of the Hydra's foot and to her hand. She then watched agape as Yang somehow grabbed onto the Hydra's upper fang before it could bite into her, flipping herself up and over the head to land with her legs on either side of that head's neck right behind where the head met its long neck.

"Yeehaw! Holy hell Nora was right this is fun! Giddy up little doggie!" Yang holed before bringing her fists down on the things spine right behind the skull. That seemed to be weak point as her shotgun shell punches smashed through hide and bone. The head went limp immediately, dumping Yang to the ground, but the other two heads immediately came after her forcing the blonde bomber to keep dodging.

Pyrrha jumped forward Milo nearly skewering one head as Akuo smashed the other head just off it's attack angle. Yang jumped over her, her shotgun shells ringing out once more, and both heads reared back, not badly hurt but dazed. All this had done however was to give the downed head time to regenerate from its injuries.

"We have to do some more damage somehow!" Pyrrha shouted as she and Yang began to duck and dodge, their hair flying as the Hydra, nor thoroughly enraged, stomped and snarled, turning in place to bring its forward claws to bear while its heads ducked and swooped in, trying to deal with it's tormenters.

"I'm open to suggestions Red!" Yang shouted, then gave an 'oof' as she was struck by one of the heads, having dodge to one side but unable to dodge the head sweeping to the side. Her hair, which had been glowing dimly from the earlier impacts began to burn brighter as her Semblance activated once more When the next head swooped in she grabbed it, one hand on either side of its jaw and heaved her arms apart.

At the same times Pyrrha was dodging as she thought about the problem, then looked around for a split second, trying to think. Then it came to her. "Blind it, I think I have an idea!"

Putting action to thought Pyrrha changed her weapon into its rifle mode, firing her few remaining bullets up at the beast's head, her semblance guiding the bullets to their targets. Yang too joined in and soon the Grimm was stumbling back, its eyes blinded for the moment.

Just then a wailing cacophony went up from the Grimm still assaulting the city here and there and in the air. The Nevermores croaked in something approaching dismay, and the airborne portion of the Grimm broke up, flying in every direction they could. Outside the walls the Grimm still trying to attack also howled or roared, turning away and running now as the will that had been driving them suddenly lost its cohesion.

 **OOOOOOOO**

Ranma and the Dryder wailed on one another, moving back and forth along the open ground beyond the walls. Every time the Dryder tried to break for the woods Ranma got in its way turning the thing around. By this point the Dryder had realized Ranma's healing ability made its attacks practically useless. It had tried to pin him in place with webbing and go for his eyes, but Ranma had broken out, using his shield to block the blows. It had tried to get more of its fellows to attack him, but none of the spider-type Grimm remained thanks to Ranma, Beni and Glynda's efforts and none of the other Grimm were willing to obey it's commands to attack the warrior glowing that bright blue color.

By this point Ranma's armor was more scraps of metal barely hanging off him than anything else, though his shield was still in one piece, somewhat dented, but otherwise fine. His aura was flickering wildly, even Ranma's control of his ki fading, in danger of being overwhelmed by the deluge of the planet's aura, and he could no longer use his ki attacks. His eyes were still glowing with azure fire however, and he pressed in hard, leaping all around the Dryder, overwhelming the creature with his Amiguriken attacks, which had cracked his armor here and there.

The battle didn't end with a climactic exchange, it ended, as things like this most often do, with a simple mistake. The Dryder had twisted around, trying to put Ranma's back against wall of a farmhouse that was still standing. But in so doing it didn't look where it was putting its feet and two of them on the same side where it had already lost a few of them, smacked into the side of a well.

The Dryder's defense faltered for a bare second, and Ranma's fist, which had been aimed at it's chest, aimed instead for it's head, smashing in with the sound of a machine gun once more. The armor over it's eyes shattered as did half of the eyes in its face. The Dryder screamed, its four arms moving wildly, but it was half blind now, and Ranma bounced through its wild attempt to protect itself.

Then he was on the thing's back raining blows down onto the wounded area, one hand gripping the Dryder's shoulder. "Just die already!" The Dryder's arms couldn't bend to attack him where he was perched, and though it tried to buck him off It couldn't, and Ranma's punches, his knuckles bloody, his fingers breaking, eventually shattered the thing's skull and the brain within.

Immediately the Grimm slumped, already starting to decompose, dumping Ranma forward. He laid on the trampled grass for a moment, gasping his arms thrust out to either side. Staring up at the sky he suddenly realized it was just pushing evening now. "Damn, what a day."

His view of the sky was occluded an instant later and Ranma flinched only to calm down as he recognized Port. "My boy, excellent job, well done! Why that duel reminded me of one of my own, the first time I encountered a Tarantkilla, I was a much younger and far more inexperienced hunter then let me tell you."

"I take it you dealt with those two Jambavan?" Ranma asked, taking in Port's form. He was limping slightly, and was covered in bruises, but seemed alright beyond that. his blunderbuss however was twisted and mangled, both the axe head and the barrel of the blunderbuss warped beyond the point of usefulness.

"Oh yes, it was a magnificent challenge, but I prevailed in the end. Did you have any doubt?" Port asked, hefting Ranma to his feet with a bellow of laughter. "But come on lad, the fight seems to have gone out of the Grimm, but there are still many of them between us and Waypoint."

 **OOOOOOOO**

Even the Hydras, the two of the four remaining alive since Glynda and Beni had dealt with one and team CVFY had dealt with the other, were not immune to it. They both sent up a wailing howl and began to lash out all around them even more violently.

Yang grunted as one of the heads tried to bit down on her again, blocking the effort with both hands holding the jaws open, but lacking the strength right now to repeat her ripping them apart trick from earlier. their attempt to blind the beast had failed, the Hydra's regeneration powers were too good for that to work.

Pyrrha concentrated, gritting her teeth and several long metal pipes she had torn out of the wreckage of the buildings around them lifted off the ground, glowing slightly black for a moment as her power of polarity worked on them. They continued to rise until they were above the battle then they shot downward as Pyrrha gritted her teeth in concentration. Each slammed into a neck of the Hydra right behind the head, pinning them down to the ground. She nearly fell to her knees from the exertion, never having used her powers on that scale before.

"Woot, nice work Pyrrha!" Yang roared having dodged out of the way of the falling head which had just been attacking her. She leaped up, landing once more astride one of the Hydra's necks, the middle one this time. The neck tried to move, but the makeshift spears nailed them to the ground too well.

"Let's hope it works," Pyrrha replied, charging forward, Milo in xiphos mode, a heavier, better blade for this work while also waving her hand at a sword which one of the B-grade Hunters had dropped at some point during the battle. "Now!"

They both struck at the same moment, the hovering sword slamming down at the same moment, destroying all three of the Hydra's brains at the same time. That was the only way to really kill the Hydra unless you could break its armor and stab it in the heart. Both were difficult in the extreme of course, and if the Hydra had been thinking straight Pyrrha's attempt to pin its heads would not have worked.

As the large Grimm faded out Yang dropped the yard or so to the ground, then flopped back onto her ass, staring at the dissipating remains. "Well there's a thing."

Pyrrha slumped down too, putting her back against Yang's. "Indeed. I feel like I could sleep for a week now."

"After a shower though, and something to eat maybe." Yang groaned, turning to look at her partner as she moved toward them with Jaune beside her, both of them looking weary and in the case of Blake, bruised too. Behind them, Yang could see the seniors and sophomores setting up a cheer and she smiled. The battle was over. Waypoint had withstood the Grim attack.

 **End Chapter**

Now I could have put in a bit about Cinder's mistress reacting to this setback, but I decided to leave that for next time. I honestly was not happy with this chapter, simply because while the fights in RWBY are cool, they don't really lend themselves to written description in large formats like this, and to me the main draw of RWBY has always been the character interactions. During a fight like this there just isn't enough time to show a lot of that. Still, it turned out pretty well for all of that. Apologies for not getting it out by the end of May as I had hoped, but RL and ATP work got in the way.

Anyway, the poll for June should be up by 1. If you want to have a say in what I write in June, go and vote. It will only be up until the 15th so I have time to concentrate on the stories that win. IT will be both for which SW crossover I write this month and which small story I will update as well. If you want a larger voice in what I write and access to my One Piece/Ranma crossover as well as a few omakes, head over and sign up as a P/atron!


	10. Chapter 10

Not Roosterteeth or Rumiko

Here is the major winner of the small story poll!

Here on fanfic, the votes went thusly: In first place (in terms of the small stories) was _Fate Touched In Middle Earth_ with 334. In second place, _Anything Goes Game Changer_ , with 228. In third place, _Gods and Devils and Wild Horses Oh My_ at 192. And in last place, _Semblance of Hope_ , with only 183. 

**HOWEVER,** on Patty R on the poll went **very** differently again. So differently that _Semblance_ took in the most votes, 890 votes. Since it has been four months since it was last updated, I gave my last 100 votes (used the other hundred on _Magic of the Force_ ) to _Semblance_ as well. This gave it a total of 1180 votes, making it far and away the winner of the short story poll.

In total _Fate Touched_ came in second, bringing in a total of 701 votes. _Game Changer_ came in third, with 441 votes, and _Gods and Devils_ came in last with 414 total votes.

Thank you all once again for taking part in these polls, and look tomorrow for November's! - have work so need to head to bed, LOL.

 **Warning! this has not been betaed except by myself doing a quick run through!**

With that said, on with the show

 **Chapter 10 Schemes in the Shadows**

Deep within her hidden palace Salem shrieked in rising rage and fear as one after another the pieces she could use to follow the action around Waypoint died. The Dryder's death was particularly galling, as that particular creature was among the most intelligent of it's breed. He would have made a fine general for her armies given time. Not the most dangerous of her tools or the smartest, but nonetheless a injury to her overall resources. The rest of the losses, even the rather idiotic breed the humans called Hydra were barely a drop in the bucket of her resources, but even so it was maddening that so many had been lost for so little return.

After a few moments taking out her rage on the walls surrounding her throne room, Salem turned, moving back to her throne as her hard won intelligence and control came back to her. _**Yes it is a setback. It will take months to rebuild the numbers that territory has lost, and years, decades even to regain the lethality their predecessors had. And my initial goal of redressing the loss of the Goliaths near the city of Vale has obviously failed. Yet on the other hand, this seems to have drawn out one of the Maidens, so the actual cost is somewhat cheap for that information.**_

Salem scowled, leaning her head back in her throne and crossing her long, almost human legs. _**I could wish I could see through my knights as well as I can sense the auras around them. If I could, I would be able to sense who it was. It felt like the Power of Spring, but Spring was not a combatant, not a frontline combatant at least. There is however a simple way to check that, I have long known the area where Spring was hiding herself. I had thought her powers would die with her, but if that is not the case, perhaps investigating her home could be enlightening. I will pass that on to the Queen.**_

 _ **Yet it is very strange,**_ Salem raised one hand to her forehead, kneading the bone of her mask, the mask so thin and fine it almost looked like skin, but not quite. _**And while my ability to actually look through my pawns is limited, it almost looked as if the Dryder was fighting a man as it died. An effeminate man, but still a man…**_

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma sneezed then scowled irritably. _That was a type fourteen sneeze. That means someone somewhere just called me a girly man. Damn Taro and his wisecracks!_

"Are you alright lad?" Port asked.

The two of them had begun to make their way toward Waypoint proper, slowly given their wounds but surely despite the Grimm still around the area. They weren't coordinated any longer, and their numbers were barely a hundred or so around the city by this point. All that were able to realize the battle was lost had fled the rest had mostly died already. As Port was turning to Ranma he lashed out almost absentmindedly, smashing a Creeper into dust with a backhand.

"Meh, I'm fine, just got something up my nose is all." Ranma said, scowling irritably as he rewound his hair into his pigtail. His hair was a longer now, but thankfully the rest of his appearance had changed back to normal after his use of Spring's power.

"Hmm… yes you are looking rather back to yourself at the moment. Might I ask what that was?"

"It's a side effect of my Semblance I suppose you could say," Ranma hedged, unwilling to say what it was, which would lead into a discussion on how a man was using a power that had always been solely usable by women. And he honestly had no idea how that discussion would go even with Port. It was a pretty incredible story after all.

"Hohoho, very well then keep your secrets my young friend, it doesn't make you any less interesting." Port replied with a bellow of laughter, before turning a slightly more serious eye on Ranma. "You realize questions will be asked yes? Not just of your Semblance but of you in general. And not just from Ozpin, but from the media. We have done something incredible here, and it will draw attention both good and bad. There will always be those who wish to tear down heroes rather than build them up."

"Yeah? Meh, never had much to do with the media really, stalkers, creepy voodoo bastards, and picture taking Ice queens yes, but not actual media. Is it really as bad as they say?" Ranma asked.

"Hmm, well I never had any problem with them except for the fact that anyone interviewing me seemed to fall asleep!" Port laughed as several Beowolves tried to get out of their way, their faces showing as much terror as Grimm faces ever could. They failed.

 **OOOOOOO**

Cinder and her associate Emerald had been able to infiltrate the outskirts of Beacon with relative ease, only beginning to encounter problems as they made their way deeper into the school's environs. Both of them, even Cinder, could pull off students relatively easily, and Emerald had scoped several of the students out on purpose over the past few weeks, so could cover them with illusions at need.

It was only the two of them for this operation. Emerald would normally be partnered with Mercury Black, but the mercenary was not, despite having been trained as an assassin, the best at sneaking around. He was also arrogant and only truly loyal because Cinder was paying him and he feared her. His lack of morals and skill made him a valuable tool it did not make him a trusted one.

In contrast, Emerald had been with her both longer and her loyalties were much less based on fear and money. Emerald never wanted to go hungry again, and Cinder had promised her that, had taken her from the streets fed and clothed and educated her. Cinder would never say it aloud, but it was nice to be around someone who wouldn't stab her in the back or followed her because of fear or ambition.

At the moment the two of them were sitting in one of the school's control rooms, which helped to control the various computer, video, and networks of the school. It was one of several but this one controlled the internal security cameras in the main tower, a secret that Cinder had only been able to discover by researching the original plans for the school. Emerald was standing by the door while Cinder worked, both of them on guard for one specific reason, which Emerald gave voice to as the download of the virus which would give them control of the cameras at need. "Why is Ozpin still here!? I'm sorry to ask Cinder, but wasn't the plan supposed to call for him not being here?"

"It was Emerald, and if I knew he was still here, I would have of course told you to expect his presence before we arrived." Cinder replied tartly, though even doing so was a sign of her own irritation. Ozpin had nearly come across them outside with no-one near enough for Emerald to use to shift attention to. "Now please **be silent**!"

Emerald 'eeped' but obeyed. And because she had, she heard voices coming down the hallway. "Two voices incoming!" she hissed, swiftly backing away from the door she raced over, sliding to hide behind the desk that Cinder was working at. Cinder joined her there, and Emerald began to concentrate, looking out the windows in one side of the wall to some birds. _Not the best but they will do!_

"I know your concerns my friend, but what would you have us do? Where else on Remnant could Amber be hidden but here? Where else where we could be certain she would not be experimented on?" Ozpin was saying as he reached the door to the control room.

The door swung open, and keen eyes peered in, analyzing everything in an instant before they were drawn to the sound of a bird smacking itself into the window. Turning back he continued to address his words to the other man standing with him. "We have too little knowledge at this point, and this Grimm attack, it is unusual enough to make me concerned both its nature and the timing."

"I do not deny the oddity, I just worry that we are too much on the defensive," interjected a man Cinder recognized as Oobleck, his rapid fire voice distinctive. Little to no threat on his own, he was an excellent support type Hunter. "We need to be doing more to support our ongoing espionage efforts. And I am worried that without you, myself and the other teachers there we will not be able to hold Waypoint."

"Ahh, on that point have no concern. Word has already been passed on to me that Waypoint has withstood the Grimm assault. Information is scant as yet, but that much is certain." Ozpin replied. He remained standing in the doorway looking around for a moment, before turning back out into the hallway, leaving the door open behind him.

The two young women remained hiding pressed together under the desk for a time, making Cinder nearly snarl in embarrassed rage. She was a **queen** damn it, a power in the world! She had promised she would never again need to hide like this, feel this… not defenseless, but off-balance certainly. But the idea of starting a fight here in Beacon with Ozpin, with Oobleck there and a few other teachers still around the place… there was no way they could win that fight. _Get away maybe, but not win. Ozpin would be more on guard afterward, and I would have lost my anonymity._

Emerald quickly removed herself the moment the two women realized the coast was clear, knowing Cinder didn't like being close like that to anyone for very long, especially if she hadn't initiated the contact. Cinder shot her a grateful look at that, and waited, still crouched there until Emerald signaled the all clear. The green-haired girl eventually did so then stood with her head to one side, unwilling to speak with the door cracked open as it was.

Her question however was easy to understand and Cinder moved to the doorway, looking out. It was evident they had overstayed their welcome here. Yet even so, we did hear confirmation, the Autumn Maiden is here! That is worth the aggravation. She nodded once to her younger follower, gesturing with a hand toward the window. "Let's get out of here."

 **OOOOOOO**

Though the shelters had yet to officially open to let out the majority of the townsfolk, several reporters had escaped during the battle to record events as they were happening. Now several of them had gathered together, putting aside their normal animosity in order to work together. None of them had any real idea what had occurred to dissolve the fear the Grimm had created among them or the rest of the town's population, but felt it had to do with the Hunters. The question was then, who to approach in order to get the best, not really the most complete, but the best story.

"I think we should look for the younger set, the students who were brought in, I'll wager they will be a lot more open about everything," one reporter opined.

"And that will let us get some video footage of the Invincible Girl." Another reporter said, his eyes gleaming. "We were able to see some of her fighting earlier."

The other reporters all nodded and began to break up, heading to different sections of the city with their targets in mind. So it was that Team RWBY and team JNPR found themselves with several people waving video scrolls in their faces barely fifteen minutes after the last Grimm had been cleared out of their area of the city. "This is Scott Burgundy of Vale News Network standing here with some of the valiant defenders who apparently have done the impossible and turned back the Grimm assault on Waypoint! That's rights viewers, the Grimm have been stopped cold! Not just stopped, but smashed to pieces, a full-scale assault led by at least one S-class Grimm was **defeated**! Let's see what the Hunters and Huntresses who did the job have to say about itTTTT!"

At that point he was interrupted by Ruby and Yang getting in his face staring into the video scroll. "Hey Dad!" They both shouted, Yang grabbin gthe man's hand to keep him still as Ruby went on. "Isn't this just awesome, not at Beacon for even a year and here we are, part of the group who saved Waypoint! It's like one of my stories come to life, Good has triumphed over Evil!" Ruby grinned, giving a peace sign to the camera before going on to talk about the fight some.

 **OOOOOOO**

On a small island called Patch a large, blond-haired man stared at the TV screen, his eyes slowly burning red with fury. He reached out, grabbing up his scroll and looked somewhat bemused as the device shattered in his grip. He stood up abruptly, growling and cursing to himself as he marched out of the room. _Ozpin you better have a good reason for putting my babies on the line like that, or else I'm going to put you through a freaking wall!_

Elsewhere in a bar a dark-haired and a dark clothed man the same age as the blond-haired man looked between his drink, then the TV blaring out the news, his face scrunched up in an almost comical mix of suspicion and shock. Then the look faded into such a look of cold rage that several men nearby flinched back. The man, who most of the bar had thought was drunk, stood up abruptly, moving to the door.

 **OOOOOOO**

At odds with the two sisters, Pyrrha and her team had mostly backed away for various reasons upon spotting the cameras. Pyrrha had lived far too much of her life in front of cameras and had no wish to encourage more of the same. Jaune was worried about is family's reaction to his being involved in this fight, and Ren, who was almost falling asleep on his feet, simply couldn't care less. Nora on the other hand was actually posing for the cameras waving and kissing her hands as if she was a star.

Weiss had easily the best, or at least most controlled reaction to the reporters. Ignoring her exhaustion for now she strode forward, one hand cocked on her hip as the other flicked her hair back over her shoulders, causing many of the girls to wonder how the heck Weiss had somehow kept her hair so pristine throughout the battle. And to go along with her physical presence, Weiss actually began to field questions about the battle after giving an overview of what their plan had been and her team's part in it. She made no mention of why students had been a part of that, simply sending a smile of all things towards Ruby and replying with a no comment.

What the Schnee heiress was thinking was anyone's guess, but she seemed happy, or perhaps proud of having taken part in the fight. Yang doubted that it would last, Weiss' usual regimented, rule-abiding mind would come back soon. But her desire to help people, and to prove herself if Yang was any judge, had come to the fore for now, and she was happy to see it.

One member of their team was noticeably missing and had been since seconds into Yanga and Ruby's little stunt. _Now where is my partner hmm… ah there she is, wow she is really quick when she wants to be!_

At that moment Ragnar led his team down from the walls nearby and despite being nearly dead on their feet immediately began to push the reporters away from the younger students, forcibly separating Ruby from one of them. Ruby had taken over the man's scroll and had been reenacting a lot of the fight, complete with those martial arts noises she made that Yang found so adorable. Nora too had to be convinced to stop posing though Yang was amused to note that Pyrrha had quickly retreated from the cameras, with Jaune and an utterly exhausted looking Ren moving to stand between her and them. that, and Ruby and Nora had formed an effective shield around the camera-shy Invincible Girl.

With this scene seemingly under control Yang nonchalantly sashayed over to the head of an alleyway. Once there she leaned against the wall, blocking the view of the alleyway as she spoke to the air. "You can come out now Blakey, the vultures have been scared off for now."

For a moment Blake didn't answer, still hiding in the shadows of the alleyway before slowly moving forward to stand directly behind Yang. "You're not going to ask why I made myself scarce?" she asked hesitantly, her body tense, ready for flight. Normally it would be fight or flight, but not with Yang or the rest of her team, never fight with the three of them.

"Meh, I figger it's got something to do with your other secret, my little alley-cat of a partner." Yang said, not turning to look at Blake until the last reporter was forcibly led away, cocking her head around to lock eyes with a visibly startled Blake.

Blake's yellow eyes had widened, and Yang reached out lightly taking Blake's hand before she could run away. Despite the gentleness of the grip though, Blake could tell that any attempt to run would fail. She might have still tried though if not for the look of amused understanding in Yang's eyes. Seeing that she calmed down, looking down at the ground beneath them. "What gave me away?"

"Two things: your eyes and your reaction to being in a sunbeam. You stay up too late and read with way too little actual light. And I saw you taking a catnap once in the library." Yang smiled, letting Blake go, happy she wouldn't try to run. "Don't worry, I doubt anyone else has realized it, Ruby and Icy don't stay up late enough to have seen you reading at night."

Blake nodded, looking at Yang closely. "So, what now?"

"What, you don't want to be my purrfect partner anymore?" Yang quipped, eliciting a groan from Blake. "If you're asking me if I'll out you to the rest, I'm not going to do that. If you're asking whether I'm curious about your past, heck yeah! But I know that curiosity killed the cat, so I won't ask, not until you're ready."

"How many of those damn cat puns do you have?" Blake asked, shaking her head in mock despair while fighting back a real, honest smile at Yang's response. "So sad that you can't be more original."

"Hey, I'll have you know my jokes are the cat's meow!" Yang retorted, grinning at Blake before pulling her into a hug.

Blake let Yang hold her for a few seconds before hugging the taller girl in turn and then pushing her away. "Thanks. I, I'll tell you and the others, I swear I will. But, but my being a Faunus isn't the whole of my secret."

"Yeah, I figured. So long as you're here of your own free will, so long as you want to be a Hunter and let whatever it was behind, that's all I care about Blake." Yang replied, her voice unwontedly serious. Then she grinned, pulling back from the hug. "On the other hand, so long as you try to keep your Faunus heritage a secret from the fun-sized pair, I get to use my cat puns on you."

"Gah no! I don't know how much of that I can take." Giggling and now arm in arm the two girls moved over to join their teams. As they approached, Blake whispered, "I'll tell them the first night back in Beacon. Will that do?"

"Yep. And don't worry Blakey, I don't honestly know Weiss enough to guess her reaction, but I think this fight and how her response to it have shown the girls got depths beyond the Weiss-cold exterior. And as for my sister, heh, the only problem with her will be once you show us your ears." At Blake's look Yang smirked. "I bet you'll have to stop her from trying to pet them all the time."

"…I can so totally see that it's scary." Blake muttered, shaking her head as they joined the others, moving to stand with Pyrrha and Jaune.

 **OOOOOOO**

Beni and Glynda met up with Ranma and Port about hallway between Waypoint and the circle of burnt ground that marked the fire line. The two of them had been hunting down every group of Grimm that seemed to be too stupid to run away. They'd flushed out a few from the scattered farmhouses around the walled town, shot a few still trying to hide here or there behind a few surviving bushes or ditches, but that was all.

Beni strode up to Ranma, poking him in the sternum with a hard finger. "You've been holding out secrets from your dear sister," she said caustically, belying the wide smile on her face.

"I trust you sis, but I don't know yet if I trust everyone you trust if you see what I mean." Ranma said with a smirk, but then he sobered somewhat. "Besides which, some secrets aren't really mine to keep, or I'm keeping because I was asked to."

Glynda heard all of that as she strode up behind Beni and frowned but decided not to get involved with it. She liked Ranma, almost against her will really, the young man grew on you like a weed, and his ability to teach and fight were things she could respect even if she didn't really like his general anti-authoritarian attitude.

So if he wanted to keep secrets, well, that was fine by her. Everyone should be entitled to do that if they wanted. If Ozpin wanted to pressure him after her report on the battle that was fine, but Glynda wouldn't do it for him. _Not after this,_ she thought, staring out over the battlefield, where a hoard of Grimm larger than any she had faced before had died. Where at least three S-class Grimm had died. _Port killed two, Ranma killed one. I certainly hope they don't try to make it into some kind of odd challenge in the future._

As they move towards the city, they saw Tacticus team GRNG and two older retired Hunters moving out of the city on small bikes, heading out into the distance. At Ranma's quizzical look Glynda explained. "They'll harass the retreating Grimm as much is possible, as will Brutus, Ragnar and their teams tomorrow along with any reinforcements that arrive. The objective will be to wipe out as many Grimm in as large an area as we can before they recover from the shock of their S-class brethren's death enough to be effective."

She gestured to the southwest up into the mountains which separated Vacuo and Vale. "I've already sent the two armed bullhead to do the same to the remaining avian Grimm. Most of those had faded away faster than the rest of the attack force, but the more Grimm we kill, the safer this area will be in the future and for longer too."

Ranma nodded. It took centuries for a Grimm to evolve from its lowest form to an S-class, decades to evolve at all between one state and the next, which was why killing Grimm in the main portion of Vale and Atlas in particular was a full time job for Hunters and the Atlesian Army respectively. Not so much an issue in Mistral thanks to it's unique geography, and it was a practically impossible task in Vacuo's desert.

Still that wasn't Ranma's main concern right now. "What happened to the Hydras? I didn't see what went on there."

"One of them died on the walls, the other one was able to breach the city, of but younger Ms. NiKos and Ms. Xiao Long dealt with it apparently." Glynda replied, shaking her head slightly as she remembered what little of that action she had seen. She and Beni had been to busy dealing with the Arachnoids to do much against the rest of the horde, knowing the spider-type Grimm would have meant death for the defenders.

Ranma whistled. "Really? Just the two of them?"

"Apparently yes, the rest of their teams were busy guarding their back from other Grimm," Beni explained. "As we were coming out I heard Coco mutter about Pyrrha having some issue with the Hydra and challenging it on it's own, not certain about that one or what it means."

"If she wants to tell us she will," Ranma said philosophically, her tone and meaning almost echoing Glynda's earlier thoughts about Ranma's secrets. "So long as it doesn't get in the way of her being able to work with her team anyway," Ranma went on, cocking an eyebrow at Glynda the most senior teacher there.

She however simply nodded, and the four teachers crossing the remaining distance between them and the town's nearest gate. There Brutus greeted them along with his teammate Naomi. The other two had been moved back to the small hospital in the town, the girl Weiss had called Trixie having taken a blow to the head that had knocked her out for a time, her Aura having been exhausted. She under concussion watch for the rest of the day.

Brutus saluted Glynda with a deep bow from the waist but she merely rolled her eyes, lifting her riding crop in something of an acknowledgment. "Three dead Hunters, and some 50 civilians missing." Brutus reported. "Most of those hadn't heeded the initial warning when we spotted the incoming Grimm. The Hunters died keeping the town cleared of burrowers."

"I've got Naomi here running the communications network," Brutus went on gesturing to the large cannon-wielder beside him.

She nodded and immediately took up the tale. "We've got bullheads coming in from all over," she reported quickly. "Two from Vacuo, one more from deeper within Vale. The Vale team is B-rate but willing and the two from Vacuo are both damned good. We also have the Vale Council on the line."

As Glynda let out a groan Naomi shrugged apologetically. "The newsies have already sent out a lot of video recordings and attempted to interview the youngsters, but Ms. Schnee was actually quite eloquent for a time, and then Ragnar and his team forced them to back off. The Council knows we've won, and they want to talk to you professor," she went on, looking at Glynda.

She rolled her eyes then looked down at her somewhat less than pristine condition. "I suppose I should meet them in the communications tower," groaned once again.

"They can wait until you have a shower at least!" Beni said disapprovingly. "And then while you're talking to them, I'll put on a spot of tea."

"That will be immensely satisfying thank you," Glynda said with a sigh and a grateful look to her friend. "Politicians. There is a reason why I'm not the headmaster and dealing with that particular brand of necessary evil is it."

By that point they had exited out of the tunnel through the wall, and came upon the battlefield where the Hydra had fallen, where team RWBY and team JNPR were still milling about. Yang was the first one to spot them, and ignoring the other teachers she shouted "Ranma!"

She moved towards them but Ruby racing forward with her semblance leaving a trail of petals behind her to halt right in front of Ranma, before scaling him like he was a tree, her words coming out in a staccato rhythm so quick that Ranma and the others could barely separate them into distinct words. "Ranma that was awesome you were so cool! How did you do that blue fire thing, what happens to that spider-man, man-spider whatever, that **thing** out there, what the heck was that!?"

Ranma laughed, ruffling Ruby's hair affectionately, as he tried to answer questions and the other students crowded close before heaving Ruby up onto one shoulder as he looked around at the other students proudly, taking it upon himself to say something. "Well done everyone! While I can't say I like the fact that all of you were here in the first place, from what I hear you all did great!"

The other teachers all nodded, adding their own words of praise somewhat cautionary in Glynda's case as she didn't want to encourage the students to stow away again in the future. But despite that, all of the students stood a little straighter, a little taller at the praise.

Yang took a moment to look at Ranma closely, but her looks were back to normal now. So she shrugged, putting it down to a side effect of his Semblance. Looping her one arm around Ranma's, she leaned in, deliberately pressing her chest into run his arm. "That was fucking awesome Blue she said, whispering into his ear over the cacophony of all the other voices asking questions, or just generally cheering now as Nora was.

"B, blue?" Ranma asked turning to look Yang in the eyes before looking away flushing slightly as he had accidentally allowed his eyes to stray further down from Yang's face into her chest.

Internally pumping a hand up in the air at that little victory Yang replied. "Well yeah, from that blue fire you put out. And calling you Fireboy would just sound so tacky!"

Ranma laughed, shaking his head but still making a point of not letting his eyes wander again. "Meh, we'll work on it, though I think it doesn't fit as well as yours Bad Girl."

"And I still say that sounds sexy," Yang said happily, still holding onto his arm.

Seeing this Pyrrha frowned a little, feeling some unusual emotion inside for a moment, before she too moved in front of Ranma smiling at him, noticing for the first time intellectually that she and Ranma were equal in height, something she realized she liked for some reason. "You truly did an amazing job out there, we were losing until he killed that Dryder. When it died, the horde lost all its cohesion. Indeed, I would say you turned the tide when you activated your Semblance."

Not even asking a single question about the nature of that Semblance Pyrrha added. "And you to professor Port," turning to send a slightly blander smile the older professor's way. "Those two large bear creatures, they were very formidable from what we could see from the wall."

"Most formidable indeed! It was a fight for the ages, why they even broke through my Semblance a few times," professor Port said with a loud laugh. "Yet we prevailed, as I always have. The Juggernaut is unbeatable!"

Brutus chuckled, smiling at the professor who had more than any other helped him up discover his Semblance and then modify his personal style to fit. "Exactly, lets here it for tanks baby!"

"Here, here!" Yang and Jaune shouted, while the other students all rolled their eyes, even the just-arrived Yatsuhashi from his place on the team.

"So what's the plan now professors?" Ren asked, his knees looking like they were going to give up on him any moment with Nora's arm around him protectively. "Are we going to stay here or what? Because I am about to fall over."

Weiss spoke up before any of the teachers could, flicking out her wallet and pulling out a single credit card. "I," she said haughtily am buying us all the top floors of the best hotel in this town, and we are going to crash for the rest of today and all of tomorrow! My legs feel as if they are either about to fall off, or start a revolt! I demand to be pampered!"

Every girl there looked suddenly looked lost in thought, and then nodded as one. "Pampering!" Nora said firmly. "Definitely pampering, ooh, pampering and pancakes, the perfect 2P!"

"That's actually not a bad idea Ms. Schnee," Glynda said with a chuckle. She too was having a fond thoughts about getting a nice massage or a manicure-pedicure. But you won't have to pay for the actual hotel rooms, Hunters get special privileges during operations like this."

"Awesome!" Ranma said, his own exhaustion slowly coming back to them as he stood there. "Anyone object?"

There was a roar of approval from all around them, and the group, marched through the city to the hotel. As they did, they saw members of team SAIL here and there, along with several hundred townsfolk, the first let out of their bunkers/evacuation points. Many of them cheered the Hunters, those in training and not as they saw them, but didn't mob them thankfully, though there was a moment when they nearly did as someone called out, "Hey isn't that the Invincible Girl?"

Hearing this Pyrrha ducked away, hiding behind Yatsuhashi's bulk for a moment. Ranma fell back through the crowd with Yang still hanging onto him for the moment cocking his head at the redhead. "If you want, I bet you could take to the rooftops and meet us at the hotel."

Walking next to his partner Jaune nodded as he saw several dozen people looking in their direction now, including more reporters. Glynda had barred the reporter's way, but the people around them had simply flowed around the blonde teacher. Behind them however, Jaune saw the perfect thing to grab the crowds attention "We'll cover ya Pyrrha, just wait for it okay?"

Pyrrha nodded quizzically then Ranma noticed what Jaune had seen and laughed quietly. "You are a brave man Jaune."

"Thank you. Never let it be side that I am not willing to sacrifice myself for my team." Jaune replied seriously, then raised his hand and yelled out, his voice even louder than the man who had shouted about noticing Pyrrha. "Hey sis, over here!"

Through the crowd another blonde head could be seen turning from looking towards Port and Glynda her eyes lighting on Jaune in shock and rising anger. "Jaune Arc what do you think you're doing here young man!"

Lilla Arc was a tall woman who took after her father in height and her mother in everything else, with the Arc family's habitually massive aura reserves matched with a Semblance that her teammates had dubbed the All-Seeing Eye, an ability to change her eyes to that of a hawk only even more powerful. It made her possibly the best sniper in the world, and those eyes were now locked on her younger brother, glaring with all the intensity of a small sun.

At her back stood two other girls and a single boy, all of them dressed varyingly in Hunter's garb. The boy had a massive cannon and a robot arm, while the two girls, both Fox Faunus had wicked smirks on their faces and even more wicked scimitars on their waists as they too looked at Jaune.

All four of them began to push the small crowd out of their way, disrupting the move to surge forward and crowd in among the younger Hunters. Pyrrha whispered a quick thank you to her partner, then bolted, racing to a nearby alleyway then up onto the rooftops and over them towards the hotel a few blocks away.

"In my defense," Jaune said, holding up his hands, "I'm only here because I couldn't let one of my new teammates head itno this fight alone. Lilla Arc, meet Nora Valkyrie."

"Hello~!" Nora caroled, popping up from her place over by Ren, who was quickly propped up by Ruby, who zipped over from her original place at the head of the column, staring at Lilla in interest as were the other freshman.

Lilla glared at first Jaune then Nora, who actually quailed as Lilla's Semblance-changed eyes glaring at her from barley a few feet away. "Explain." She ordered tersely. She didn't have to add the words 'or else' to that.

Jaune hurriedly did so, and Ruby 'eeped' as he mentioned her having stowed away as well, but her team, even Blake, who was busy hiding herself as far away from the camera-scrolls as she could, stood up for her, moving between the older Arc and Ruby.

After a moment Lilla's Semblance deactivated, and she smiled pulling Jaune into a hug. "In that case I'm proud of you Jaune. My team and I have to take a turn on the wall for a few hours, but I'll come by your hotel room to pick you up so we can hang out. I haven't seen you in months after all! Er, sorry I missed your graduation party, I was hip deep in a culling mission."

"No problem sis," Jaune replied quickly, squeezing back. "Just don't call the parents until after I have some time to recover okay?"

Crisis averted for now, the group got going soon after that, marching into the hotel en-masse, joined by Pyrrha who jumped down from a nearby rooftop. She thanked her partner profusely, while Beni, who had left Glynda and Port behind to talk to the reporters, strode up to the desk.

The person by the desk looked up and sneered at Velvet. "We don't keep allow animals here! She'll have to…"

That was as far as she he got, before Beni had slammed her palm down on the desk in front of him with a sound like a gun shot. At the same time Ranma stuck out a hand, snagging Brutus by the back of his shirt where he had been about to charge forward.

"Velvet Scarlatina is a Huntress in training who came to the aid of your town." Beni said her voice a controlled fury that went well with the near-Glynda level glare she was giving the man. "You will treat her with respect, or the Vale Council will hear of this! If that is actual policy, your company will be fined heavily. If that is your personal policy, I will make it my personal mission to see that you are never able to find work in Vale anywhere!"

Behind Beni, Velvet was frowning at the man, but making no move to either hide or attack, she simply looked sad as did Naomi, happy her teammate wasn't there. On the other hand, Coco was being held back by both boys on her team, though Yatsuhashi seemed like he wanted to reach over the table and pop the man's head like a melon. Blake and Yang were also great glaring at the man, and Weiss had drawn herself up into such an expression of high-class dungeon that Ranma might well have been able to feel the cold radiating off her if not for the bonfire that was still in possession of his arm.

The man looked almost ready to piss himself in fear, and began to sputter, backing away and actually running off into the back of the concierge office.

Coco laughed, calming down instantly hopping up over the desk before some other worker could come out to take his place. "So, that will be the penthouse suites and the three wedding suites?" she asked.

"That will do us nicely thank you Coco," Beni replied with a smile at the girls antics. "Now if you could get a bellhop to help us with our bags" she said, cocking one eyebrow at Coco, who laughed.

One of the other workers hurriedly came out and began to finish their check-in quickly, looking utterly terrified at Coco standing beside him, whistling cheerily as she watched him work. The fact she was twirling her handbag, which had been recorded as changing into a giant Gatling gun might have had something to do with that.

 **OOOOOOO**

While the students were getting settled into their rooms, Glynda continued to work, calling in Port quickly. Port went around the town, making a tally of the damages for later, linking up with the mayor of the town, and taking updates from Tacticus and the teams still out in the field harrying the surviving Grimm. Leaving Beni to make arrangements for the two of them, Glynda contacted the Vale council and immediately began to remember why she was so happy that Ozpin normally talked to them for the school instead of her.

"I assure sirs, I am not lying or downplaying events. The battle was very much in doubt, the Grimm horde the largest I have personally seen. I would wager it was as large a horde as that faced during the Fall of Semaphore, or during some of the Grimm Days back during the wars." Glynda said coldly. "Have you ever heard anything to tell you that I am given to hyperbole?"

Grimm Days were the name given to battles between the countries which had ended by gathering Grimm in such numbers the combatants were either forced to retreat or join forces. It said something, in Glynda's opinion, that the armies would join forces so easily on the unit level, but if you got the generals or higher ups involved such went out the door.

"But in that case how in the world did you do it!? How did you stop such a massive force from overrunning Waypoint? I've been there, the defenses aren't very much, and a Grimm force that size…" one of the councilmembers said, his voice somewhat whiny. Despite the anonymity the communications software enforced, some differences in personality still came through.

"Cut off the head, and the body is far less dangerous. One of my fellow teachers was able to counter the arrival of the controlling S-class Grimm, a Dryder, engage it, and kill both it and the large majority of the Tarantkillas which would have been able to ignore the wall." Glynda paused, then decided it would be best for them to hear it straight from her rather than from the news. "The student teams we brought in were able to counter and eventually kill one Hydra, while myself and another teacher killed another. After that, the horde lost cohesion and the battle ended swiftly."

"As I already explained to you counselor, it was a matter of tactical brilliance and skill. You do not always need gigantic robots and numbers to turn the tide," Glynda said coldly. She recognized that voice is one of the Vale counselors who was a little too close to Atlas for her presence of mind. Ozpin didn't see a problem with it, but she did.

Glynda was firmly of the belief that Hunters should be used to hunt and that the idea of using robots against the Grimm might seem a good idea, but then who controlled the robots? Who made certain that they were not turned against humans? She trusted General James Ironwood, but she didn't really like his policies at all. He was the type to use a cannon when a simple needle would work just as well. He was also the ruler of Atlas in all but name, and that didn't sit well with her either.

We have the Atlesian Air Fleet incoming. They just crossed our airspace, as we had asked them for aid," said another counselor, seeming to glare at the first one for a moment. It was very hard to tell with the software covering their figures of course. "Are you truly in the clear Professor? Can we turn them back? If we can, I'd like to turn this into a PR moment for our methodology, **not** one of cooperation and togetherness with Atlas if we can help it."

 _Politics again always politics with this group,_ Glynda thought coldly. Yet she had to agree with the man. Considering that many of the counselors had begun to ignore Vacuo, and even Mistral in favor of Atlas, adding more seeming closeness to that dynamic was probably a bad idea. "Yes, you can tell General Ironwood to turn around," she said coldly. "We have handled it, more robots are not necessary. More Hunters are, in order to harry the shattered Grimm and broaden the new safe zone I mean to create here."

But surely more air cover would be good?" said another counselor, his tone more thoughtful than the first one who had spoken up, but certainly leaning in that direction. "And I still contend that it would be an excellent PR moment even if we brought in the Atlesian forces, we could hit two high notes rather than one in that manner."

"And lose the emphasis on the first. You know we've already been asked a lot of questions about how close we are to Atlas, especially since their own counsel has yet to reform after their civil war." The second councilor countered. "I don't know about you, but I haven't forgotten that a lot of our crystals and ores come not from Atlas but from Vacuo!"

The civil war he mentioned was a very low-key civil war, more of an anticorruption campaign than anything else, with only a few pitched battles. At the time Glynda had been very much in favor of General Ironwood's rebellion, as some called it. Say what you would about James, but his morals were not in question. His methodology on the other hand was in Glynda's eyes, and the fact that he had yet to actually call for a general election as he had promised was another point against him in her eyes.

"As I said counselor, more Atlesian goons in the street, or robots on the walls would not help at this point!" She said, unconsciously taking on her Professorial Voice™ and slapping her riding crop down into her hand.

The counselors all jolted a little, and she hid a smile with the ease of long practice, pointing out a nearby window though of course the counselors couldn't see the window, just the gesture. "We have two Hunter teams from Vacuo arriving even now, and I know for a fact that we have another team of Hunters from Vale as well. Once those three teams arrive, there'll be literally nothing that Atlas can do other than saber-rattling in the streets. More construction teams, and perhaps some medical aid would be helpful, but I truly doubt that Atlas's military fleet has such things."

"Very good," said a fourth counselor, his voice somewhat shaky, but nodding all the same. They all looked at one another and this time their movement quite was visible as they seemed to have a discussion which they had muted her out of before that last one turned back to her. "Very well, we will turn the Atlesian Fleet back, but we will require several things from you Professor. We want a full public announcement in the next 24 hours, as well as a detailed report for ourselves."

"I've already given a few statements for the public, as you no doubt are aware," Glynda interrupted dryly. "And as soon as I get off the line with you, I will start the official after action report counselors."

Even politicians could get that hint, and they began to sign off quickly. As the last left Glynda allowed herself a tired groan then stretched before she began to contact the other teachers still in the field. There was still work to do after all, at least until the two Vacuo teams arrived.

 **OOOOOOO**

General Ironwood frowned, crossing his hands behind his back as he stared at the pickup. "Counselors I assure you, my fleet will help regardless of the situation on the ground. To my mind, putting politics in front of military necessity is a step towards arrogance we cannot afford when dealing with the Grimm. I do not mean to denigrate Professor Goodwitch's expertise, but there could be a follow-on wave of Grimm, there usually is unless you have completely done away with the feelings of fear and hate that call to them." That this would have allowed him to see Glynda in person again was just a bonus.

"If there is, there will be more Hunters in place to deal with it. The battle is over, the crisis averted, or rather crushed by the initial media accounts," said one of the Vale counselors dryly. "We have no need of the, what was it that one media man said, oh yes, the Atlesian cavalry racing to our aid at this moment. Turn back general, Vale is pleased with the speed of our ally's response, but has no need of your aid at this time."

"Very well, I will turn the majority of my fleet around although I would like permission for my flagship to continue on to Beacon. I'd like the opportunity to catch up with old friends if that's all right." James replied, giving up that battle quickly in favor of opening a new avenue of attack.

"That is fine. We will tell our security Bullheads that you have been given permission," said one of the other counselors nodding his head and ending the discussion.

Ironwood sighed shaking his head, but gave the orders to turn his fleet around, while also ordering his personal pilot to make for Beacon. After that he continued to stare out the forward viewport, his thoughts rather bloody as he wondered if this political move would cost lives. There was no way that the reports of this sheer number of Grimm killed were accurate. There would be a follow-up wave. But if there was, he and his flagship at least could get their swiftly enough. The idea of this barely known teacher killing an S-class was well, that was probably propaganda.

 _Unless they had gotten it wrong and Glynda was the one who engaged the S class. That I would find believable. Hmm, but there were some reports that this Ranma fellow was the Azure Warden of Semaphore fame. I never actually believed the rumors about his action during that battle, but I suppose it could makes sense._ _Nevertheless, this whole fiasco can still be turned to our advantage against this hidden enemy Ozpin has warned me about given what my ship contains. It's time to talk to the Wizard, and bring him his requested toys._

"Sir," A voice from behind him interrupted James's thoughts and he turned to look at his aide Winter Schnee. She was a tall, attractively built woman in her late twenties (he knew this because he had access to her military file, not that he had ever asked, James wasn't stupid after all) with the white hair characteristic of her family. On top of her family's habitual cold, aloof demeanor had been aided the stiff control of a soldier.

At his nod, Winter went on. "Sir, Huntress Danville is requesting clearance to take a Bullhead out, she wishes to continue heading to Waypoint."

"Tell Miss Danville that her request is granted," Ironwood said after a moment. It wasn't as if we could stop them anyway. The team was not under his command after all.

Winter stiffened at that, and Ironwood hit a faint smile. The oldest daughter of the great Schnee family **always** prided herself on her self-control, but it was a fact that Charlotte rubbed her the wrong way. It was quite amusing to see the younger girl, with her accent and her almost shy nature get under his aide's skin so easily, though he couldn't deny the fact that Charlotte, with her barely hidden contempt for Atlas' military, sometimes got under his skin as well. The small island Charlotte came from did the same with startling rapidity, its citizens being the most vocal in demanding that a democratic administration be allowed to take over Atlas' governance.

But until he was able to guarantee that handing over control of his country to a democratic government would not see the return of the old boys' networks that he had dismantled, James would not hold general elections. He had given his word to make certain that such elections occurred the moment he could be certain that they would truly give voice to the people, not a moment before.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ozpin held the scroll away as Qrow shouted at him. "I am going to hurt you for letting my niece's go into that kind of action so soon," the expert Hunters said coldly as soon as the scrolls connected.

There was no drunkenness in his voice at all, and Ozpin felt a moment of fear as he thought of Qrow and Taiyang joining forces against him for a moment. "It is not my fault as I just got off the scroll telling Taiyang," he said swiftly. "I had no knowledge of their involvement until the reports came in. According to Glynda Ruby stowed away, and her team of course followed." Ozpin allowed himself was faint smile at that. Their closeness and camaraderie was actually quite gratifying to see so quickly. It took some teams years to build that kind of friendship.

Qrow glared through the pickup for a moment then sighed. "Yeah, that's just like her always wanting to pitch in always wanting to punch above her weight class. It doesn't mean I'm not going to spank that girl when next I see her."

"Be my guest, though I understand from the few reports I've gotten from Glynda, you understand of course that she is rather busy at the moment, that certain punishments have already been place for her and for her conspirator Nora. Would a spanking really add anything to being denied cookies for a week?"

"Oh that's evil, that's true evil!" Qrow said admiringly. "Nice to see that Glynda hasn't lost her touch."

"Saints forfend she ever does," Ozpin said, chuckling quietly. "I doubt Beacon would ever be the same if she did." A second later he sobered, staring at Qrow in turn and when he spoke there was no humor in his voice, only cold authority. "Now, tell me about your search for the Queen."

 **OOOOOOO**

Yang was just about to enter the bathroom for a glorious, **glorious** shower and hair pampering moment when her scroll went off. Growling irritably, she glared as Blake slid past her with catlike grace, pausing at the doorway into the bathroom winking at her for a moment. "Sorry Yang, but you snooze, you lose."

"Fine pussycat! Be that way, though I didn't think cats liked water all that much." Yang growled back, whispering the words in such a way that only a Faunus could have heard them.

"That's stereotyping and you were doing so well there for a moment," Blake said with a faint sigh as if she couldn't be bothered to care, waving her hand as she closed the door firmly, only the faint uptick at her mouth showing any further reaction.

Yang rolled her eyes, but couldn't fight her own lips turning up into a grinned as Blake shut the bathroom door. _Oh, I am so going to milk this for all it's worth! There are just so many puns I can do now that Blake knows I know her little secret. Or at least one of her little secrets anyway. There's something else going on it there, though what it is I've no idea._

At that somewhat somber thought Yang set that minor mystery to one side to answer her rapidly beeping scroll. "Hello! You've reached the beautiful and mag-, oh, um hi Daddy!" she said, some of her forced cheer going out of her voice to be replaced by the real thing.

"Don't 'oh high Daddy' me, young lady! What the heck did you think you were doing! You and your sister are not trained Hunters yet, heck you're not even seniors at Beacon, you should never have gotten involved in a battle that large!" The equally blonde-haired man on the other end of the communication growled.

"Don't blame me for this one! This is all Ruby!" Yang said, having no hesitation whatsoever to throw her sister under the bus.

Ruby, who had just come into team RWBY's room from the main sitting room of the penthouse suite stared at her in shock, and Yang rolled her eyes at the girl's expression of horror. _I'll make her cookies later. Considering the upcoming punishment, she'll no doubt want to squirrel away a few. That'll get me back in her good graces easily enough._

"Besides," Yang went on looking back down at the scroll. "You raised us to always do our part, to always pitch in against the Grimm wherever we could. You can't just go back on that the moment you think the fights too big for us. And I have to say I think we did pretty damn well! I took out a freaking A-class Hydra for God's sakes! And Ruby, Ruby killed at least three dozen giant death stalkers, and one or two Triceraraptors. We did **brilliantly**! I won't hear anyone say different."

"Judging from what the news agencies are saying you did," her father said softly, "but you shouldn't have had to. This isn't a game, Yang, Ruby" Taiyang said, looking at his younger daughter who had just pushed her head into the pickup. "And in that news video you're acting as if as if it was all fun and games!"

"Because the fight had already ended," Ruby said simply blinking as if she was trying to comprehend what the problem was. "The serious stuff was over with, and we could celebrate our victory. Is that so wrong?"

"It's not wrong baby, it's just you shouldn't have been there in the first place!" Taiyang said again, almost wailing the words.

"But we were, and like Yang said we did our part very well." Ruby stared through the pickup that her father, her eyes wide and innocent, but her voice very serious. "Dad, this has been my dream since the moment I started reading about Hunters. To do my part, to fight the good fight, to follow in yours and moms footsteps! I'm not going to back away from it even if you think I'm still too young."

Taiyang stared at them as Yang grinned proudly at her little sister, resisting with difficulty the urge to pull her into a hug. Then he sighed and began to cry. "AH, my little, my little girls growing up too fast!"

"Well, not so much," Yang said patting Ruby on the head. "It's just that in this one area we're both advanced for our years!"

That caused Taiyang to chuckle and he regained control of himself quickly. "All right, but no more of this stealing away to get sent on dangerous missions Ruby, I mean it! I don't want to hear about such things in the obituary okay?" he said staring at them both earnestly. They both nodded, and he sighed and signed off.

"That went better than I expected," Yang said after a moment.

"Maybe" Ruby replied, waving one hand up in an up-and-down motion. "We'll see what happens when we get back to Beacon."

"Besides your punishment of course~~," Yang caroled, pulling Ruby into a hug, a gentle one for her.

Ruby growled, pushing at Yang's stomach to try and break her grip with no avail. Her sister was far too built for a push from Ruby to do anything but amuse her. "Yours too, or have you forgotten that you won't be allowed hair care products?" the younger sister asked snidely.

"And here I was about to make you cookies," Yang said with a huff releasing her sister and turning away, only to stop and be dragged back into a hug.

"I'll be good I'll be good!" Ruby pleaded. "Please make me enough cookies to squirrel away, pleeeease!?"

Yang chuckled, rubbed Ruby's hair and gestured her to follow her out into the rest of their room. "Fine, but for now, see if you can find a restaurant that's open. Let's get some real food before we start on the desert."

Having missed out on being first into the shower thanks to her father's call Yang moved into the penthouse's kitchen to find Ranma already there. He shook his head at her before she entered the kitchen pointing over his shoulder. "There's nothing here."

"Ruby?" Yang asked looking over her own shoulder towards Ruby.

Ruby, whose speed dialing was practically legendary already among the freshman class put her scroll down, and was that smoke coming off it or was that just Yang's imagination? "Nothing," she reported. "None of the restaurants are open yet, though there are a few pharmacies and convenience stores that have reopened quickly but that's all. Most of them had a rote message saying they would return to their regular schedules tomorrow."

"The pharmacies and such are open to probably to help with the wounded," Ranma said with a nod, before looking over at Yang. "We could cook? Ruby did say once that you're a good cook."

Yang nodded, thumping her thigh against his as she winked coquettishly at him. "This will be a good time to see what you can do in the kitchen up close too!"

With that the two of them bent over a pen and paper and began to write out a list while the other teams came in from their own rooms to flop around the suite's main area. When they were done, Ranma, Fox and Yatsuhashi were sent out for supplies, since they didn't need nearly as much time in the bathroom to recover from the days exertions, as Weiss put it. They had thought to also bring Ren, but he was already dead to the world in one of the beds in JNPR's room.

 **OOOOOOO**

Sitting out on the balcony of the room that she had organized for herself and Glynda, Benzaiten spotted Blake on the balcony to one side of their own, setting down on a chair there looking out over the town. From what the redhead could see, Miss Belladonna was looking rather angry and sad, almost listless. Moving over to the railing, Beni asked softly, "Do want to talk about it?"

Blake looked up sharply, and was about to shake her head when Beni cocked an expressive eyebrow at her. "I can tell something is bothering you, don't try to deny it. And it's more than just being tired from the fight. Talking about your problems often helps you solve them."

"I am kind of tired after the fight, it's just that and some other things I suppose piling up. I just wanted some peace and quiet to think, my team can be sometimes a little too much," Blake said, trying halfheartedly to both acknowledge Beni's words and get out of actually talking about it.

But it didn't work. "Come over then Blake" Beni almost ordered Blake. "If you want some peace and quiet, you'll get that more here in our room then you will in that suite I'm sure. If you don't want to talk we don't have to."

Blake actually smiled gratefully at that, and soon enough was ensconced in one of the sofas in Glynda and Beni's room. She had told Yang where she was going, and after looking at her searchingly for a moment Yang had simply nodded, showing once more there was a mind beyond that blonde mane of hers. Some people just needed some alone time after a fight like this that had never been Yang's scene of course, but she understood.

While Beni moved around the room preparing some tea Blake simply sat, staring down at her hands. She looked up startled as Beni asked softly "Were you able to stay out of the cameras view?"

"H, how!" Blake stuttered and Beni smiled softly at her.

"Ozpin allows the teachers to see any and all information on every student at Beacon that isn't medically related. Did you really think that he of all people was unaware of your past?"

As Blake began to panic Beni went on unhurriedly. "Trust me, I understand the need to start over. I could not stay in Vacuo after the fall of Semaphore, and that is nothing comparison to the need of leaving such a… storied past as yours behind. I'm not about to judge you for it. If I was a Faunus, I would be of a mind to take up arms myself. On the other hand, I'm happy that you were able to see the steep slope that you and your fellows had begun to fall down."

Blake flushed in pleasure, looking away slightly. "Thank you," she said softly, one hand reaching up to her cat ears, hidden behind her bow. "It's, it's hard, hard leaving that kind of thing behind, but… but we had stopped fighting the good fight, we had become almost as prejudiced as what we were fighting against."

"So if it's not concerns about being seen on TV, what is bothering you?" Beni asked.

"My partner, Yang. she knows about my being a Faunus, and I, I want to come clean with my team, I'm just not… I don't…" Blake stuttered to a halt, looking away. She was utterly unused to discussing feelings like this, and fighting a growing urge to simply run away. That had always been her solution to every problem she couldn't' overcome, to use her Semblance and escape, to run and fight another day.

"You're afraid of being rejected," Beni said softly. "Again totally understandable. I don't think you need to worry about Yang turning her back on you, or Ruby. As for Weiss I think if you come clean soon, it will be far less hurtful to her then later. You also have to understand her own position."

That brought Blake up short and she glared at the older woman. " **Her** position! She's a pampered little princess! Her entire family's fortune is based on exploiting Faunus workers! Have you ever seen what those mining camps are like!?"

"I know that," Beni said calmly, moving over to sit across from the angry young woman. "However, I can also see it from her point perspective. How much control do you think she has over her company?"

At that question Blake paused, then seem to subside, some of her anger leaching out of her. "None I would think," she answered reluctantly.

"Exactly. She doesn't make those policies. All she sees is the loss of life from your attacks on them, on the higher ups she might have known, indeed Weiss has lost several uncles, aunts and cousins to the Black Fang. I have no doubt that she thinks the Black Fang as a terrorist group, because that is what it has become."

Beni looked at Blake intently, almost daring her to say different, and Blake could not, not after seeing such from inside the beast itself. Nodding Beni went on. "However, I also do not think that she sees all Faunus like that. She would not have stood up for Velvet as the rest of you did in my little test, she gets on relatively well with Velvet, and has kept her temper around Ragnar since that first meeting."

"I don't know Blake said sighing deeply. "I don't know how to go about it, I don't know how **I'll** react if Weiss spouts out about the Black Fang being evil. I know what we've become, but, there was a time when we were fighting the good fight against people like her and her family."

"Then stay here for the night and think about it, prepare yourself for what it could be. Just remember to keep an open mind, and don't go into it with preconceived notions. Weiss is just as much of a product of her family than you are from your experiences. Okay?"

"Okay," Blake said after a moment. She opened her scroll and texted Yang her plan for the evening, getting back a large emoticon with cat ears and a grinning face, which caused her to roll her eyes even as her lips twisted into a smile. Beni hummed inquisitively and Blake replied. "Just thought of a major reason to go forward with telling my team: Yang has promised to lay off the cat puns if I do."

Beni laughed returning to her tea as Blake pulled up a book on her scroll, sighing and leaning back comfortably in the chair.

A few moments later the door to the suite opened and Glynda trooped in, closing it with a final thump before moving over to a chair. She glanced quizzically at Blake, but decided not to question the quiet student's presence, instead leaning back in her chair and putting her feet upon the coffee table between them with a faint sigh. "The political maneuvering and everything is organized for the day, I have to do a formal after action report, but that can wait until the morning. The last Vacuo team has arrived, and we are all formally off-duty."

"You shouldn't fight in high heels," Beni said mock sternly, handing over a cup of tea to her friend as she sat down next to her. Would you like a foot massage?

"Glynda cocked one eye open at to look at the younger woman, then nodded gratefully as she took the cup. "I would love one please.'

Beni nodded, and slowly removed Glynda's high heels, before putting her hands first on one foot then the other, kneading the arches of her feet with both hands. "I've already set up an appointment for the both of us at one of the town's beauticians, we might have to have some pictures taken afterwards, but that is a small price to pay I think. Still, this should do for tonight."

"Oh my word," Glynda muttered, her head lolling back as she fought down a slight moan as Beni got to work on her feet. "Oh yes, that is just what the doctor ordered, oh that feels good!"

Watching this Blake blushed, staring at the two teachers before shaking her head rapidly and turning her attention to the book in her hands. _No, don't let your imagination run wild, just don't! They're just good friends, and fighting in high heels is no doubt painful, that's all there is to it._ Glancing up, she caught a look in Beni's eyes before looking back down. _Right?_

 **OOOOOOO**

As Blake was enjoying the peace and quiet while fighting back some salacious thoughts about two of their professors, the other teams were looking to blow off some steam. Most of them anyway. Ragnar and Brutus's teams had simply crashed in their rooms, only Brutus having any kind of energy to spare.

Team GRNG and team SAIL pulled off duty now that the last team from Vacuo had arrived, came together in one of their rooms in the hotel. Both teams had a shared passion for Cards Against Remnant, and this seemed a perfect time to have a major game.

CFVY, JNPR, and RWBY came together in their shared suite, minus Jaune, Ren and at first the other boys and Ranma. Jaune had been taken away by his older sister, both to remonstrate with him about being involved in the fight and to catch up after not having seen each other for so long. Team JNPR's other resident male was unconscious in his their room, with Nora nearby nodding off too. She had a lot of endurance, but when she reached her limit, Nora crashed hard.

Pyrrha and Ruby, who had beaten Yang into the shower as Yang talked to Ranma, were the first out of the showers. Pyrrha sat down in the sitting area, pulling out a scroll to send a message to her mother about what had happened, why she had been involved in a fight of this level despite only being a freshman and a short, concise report about her fight with the Hydra. She knew her mother would want to know, and would realize why she had challenged it.

Once that was done, she began to play with her hair, slowly stroking a brush from the bathroom down it, smiling fondly over at Ruby who had been telling her about how it had gone with her own father.

Nearby Coco and Velvet came out of their own room together, Coco looking as if she was ready to head out for a night on the town, while Velvet was dressed in possibly the cutest pair of sleepwear that Pyrrha had ever seen, a full body suit made of flannel with poufy sleeves and patches of different color here and there. "Where did you buy those? I have to get I pair for myself." Pyrrha asked.

"They are adorable aren't they?" Coco replied for her friend smugly. "I bought those for Velvet for the first birthday she had after we formed CFVY. We can go shopping when we are back in Vale if you like."

About 20 minutes of discussion passed through between the three girls about fashion before Weiss joined them, with Ruby only taking part in the discussion when it touched on pajamas. After a moment asking about Blake, Weiss joined the conversation seamlessly turning it into a discussion on the latest fashions in Atlas and Vale.

About five minutes after that, Yang finally finished her own shower, coming out dressed in nothing but a bathroom towel, tied loosely around her waist, so loose her chest threatened to burst out. As Weiss and Ruby stared at her in shock, the blonde bombshell flopped down into one of the sofas, crossing her legs and sticking them out as she stretched dramatically. "God there is nothing like a shower after a hard fight!"

"Tell me about it!" Coco said chuckling and making no comment about the girl's state of undress besides giving her an appreciative once over. Velvet was blushing a little, shaking her head at the younger girl's lack of shyness. "Although I could wish they had more beauty products here. The soap these hotels half is just so low-brow."

"I want some better shampoo," Yang said with a firm nod. "Is it too late to add that to the list we sent the boys out for?"

"Probably," Coco said sign sadly. "I know that my teammates would never agree to buy that kind of thing for me."

"Really, I thought you would've had them whipped after a year or so together," Yang said with a laugh.

"I like my boys feisty," Coco said with a chuckle of her own, insinuating something far dirtier which only Yang and Velvet caught. Velvet blushed brightly, looking away while Yang roared with laughter, reaching over to share a fist bump with the slightly older girl.

That was as far as their conversation to get before Weiss, who had been blushing ever hotter as Yang simply sat there shouted angrily at the girl. "Why are you just using that robe!? It's unseemly and the boys will be back soon! Get changed at once you, you shameless flirt!"

"Hey, it's not my fault the robes aren't big enough to cover all this magnificence princess," Yang replied with a laugh. "And I didn't bring any change of clothing, I'd have to get back into my Huntress garb, which is dirty and torn in place. In fact, how are you looking so pristine?"

" **My** clothing is always pristine, and unlike you I don't allow the Grimm to **ever** touch me," Weiss said, tossing her hair back arrogantly. "But as for clothing, I suppose I can help you out there."

Pulling out the same credit card she had flashed earlier that day Weiss stood up sharply, and moved towards the nearest phone calling down to the concierge. "Yes, this is Weiss Schnee in the penthouse, we need some clothing set up. Something simple and comfortable, send up a variety if you can in size… Yang, what is your size?"

Yang smirked, crossing her arms under her chest before reciting her three sizes, not just her waist size. Weiss recited them into the phone, her face blank before she turned to glare at the blonde. "You're how big!?"

To one side Ruby pouted, looking away as what Yang replied smugly reciting her sizes once again as Weiss glared at her. Even Velvet and Coco felt rather jealous at the younger girl's proportions. Her waist was actually thinner than Coco's and she was a full size chestier, a hard to beat combination.

Pyrrha on the other hand did not. She was not very body conscious like that, and saw no reason to feel jealous of anyone in that department. To her mind it was simply a pointless waist of energy.

With a sigh Weiss got off the phone, clicking it down swiftly. "They'll send a selection up."

"They don't have to on my account, I'm fine just like this," Yang said with a taunting little smile which segued into a more flirtatious one after a moment. "In fact, maybe I'll greet the boys like this. I'd really like to see Ranma's reaction to it."

"That is our professor you're talking about Xiao Long!" Weiss barked while Pyrrha frowned as some unusual feeling once more went through her. What is that I wonder, and why does it accompany the issue of me stabbing Yang in the hair with Milo?

"Yes, and if you flash my boy toys I'm going to have to hurt you. Foxy's mine, and I've done far too much to see Yatsu finally realize he and Velvet are a couple to let you derail things," Coco said mock-sternly.

As Yang held up a hand and protested her innocence, Velvet blushed so red it looked as if she was about to have a heart attack. "Coco! You know it's not like that," she squealed.

'Velvet, Velvy, my dear Velvet-cake, you know not what you speak. I've seen the looks you two shoot one another whenever you think the other isn't looking," Coco cooed. "Your naiveté is cute, but don't tell me you don't want to jump that hunk like you did that last carrot cake."

As Velvet's ability to speak degenerated into a series of stutters, Yang smirked. "Alright, so I won't push the boys to go full Neanderthal. Instead, maybe we should talk about how to give Velvet and Yatsu that final little push hmmm?"

Groaning quietly Ruby retreated under her ever present hood, something Velvet wished she could do as Coco grabbed her arm. "Now there's an idea!"

Pyrrha rolled her eyes and moved over to sit by Ruby, pulling out her scroll and shaking her head. "Here Ruby, there are a few weapons in here my aunt asked me to look at…"

Thankfully for the two redheads Weiss was able to head off any further discussion of the romantic nature, quickly engaging Coco in a discussion on sales and shopping in Vale. Yang huffed at that, before taking Pyrrha's brush which she had finished with and slowly working it through blonde tresses.

This religious moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. "That was fast!" Yang said, getting up to answer before any of the other girls could stop her.

Weiss shrieked, getting up quickly and moving past her to answer the door. "Darn it Yang have some modesty why don't you!? What if it was a boy out there!"

Yang shrugged. "They can look all they want so long as they don't try to touch. They try, they die," she said simply.

Thankfully for Weiss's peace of mind it was not one of the hotel workers on the other door side of the door. Instead it was a short girl, shorter even than Weiss with multicolored hair. "And who are you?"

Yang looked over the shorter girl's shoulder, and her eyes narrowed. "You were with that girl that stayed the night in Ranma's room right? What are you doing here?"

Neapolitan shrugged, gesturing around them as if to indicate the town, then her own two feet. After that, she reached behind her and pulled up off the floor a large pack of hard lemonade, before flashing dozens of movies in her other hand. You were in the area and wanted to help out, um, wait why are we talking in charades?" Weiss asked, before she was elbowed to the side as Yang reached for the hard lemonade.

"Now that's what I'm talking about! You're all right with me midget." Yang said, taking the heavy pack of drinks in one hand easily before moving over to the others.

Neo glared at the taller girl not at all amused by the nickname before shrugging and moving into the room despite Weiss still standing in the doorway spluttering. Coco looked up, her eyes narrowed behind her ever present sunglasses, staring thoughtfully at the multi-haired girl. "Nice hair," she said mildly. "And you come bearing gifts. What's your name little lass?"

Neopolitan pointed out her hair, then made shrinking signs with her hands "Politan or neo?" Coco guessed and the girl held up two fingers.

And why aren't you talking?" Coco asked bluntly. Neo looked at her, then shrugged her shoulders and made a gesture towards her mouth and throat with one hand.

Nodding Coco gestured her to join them. She did however keep one eye on the girl.

"She's a friend of Ranma's Yang said with a shrug. "Don't know how they met up."

With that Yang looked at the new girl who shrugged her shoulders, stood up quickly, and made to dance in place for a moment, pointing up then gesturing down with her fingers spread as if sprinkling something. "From the dance club?" Yang guessed and Neo nodded. "You're not friends with those two skank are you?" Yang asked seriously.

Neo rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders, turning away from that discussion.

"Well whatever, now put one of those movies on, a romantic comedy. I'm not in the mood for an action flick I think," Coco ordered, gesturing to Pyrrha who was the closest to the TV. Pyrrha sighed but obliged getting up and moving towards the TV leaning over it for a moment as she recited the names of the movies already present, and the ones that Neo dropped to the floor beside her.

The girls voted quickly, finding an old-style Asian film that mixed up a bit of action with a lot of comedy, one that Velvet of all people swore by for its romantic scenes being "just hilarious to watch!"

About ten minutes into the movie they were interrupted once by a concierge coming up with a change of clothing for Yang, then again about twenty minutes after that as Ranma and the two boys of team CVFY came back. Ranma entered the room, moving towards the kitchen to drop off their foodstuffs, then stopped staring in Neo. Instead of questioning her very presence however he simply groaned. "And here I thought I bought enough ice cream."

The girls all parked up, but none more than Neo t those words, and Ranma pulled out several large tubs of different flavors of ice cream out of his aura space.

Neo immediately rushed to it, grabbing one of the tubs and moving over to one of the chairs closest to the TV, plopping herself down once more and stretching out so that no one else could join her there. "interesting friend of yours Ranma," Coco said softly, glancing towards the girl again. There was just something about the way she moved, he way her eyes looked at you that put Coco on edge.

"You don't know the half of it," Ranma said with a laugh, "Still, so long as you keep her fed with ice cream she's manageable."

Neopolitan glared at him for that one then shrugged as if to say 'okay yeah can't deny that'.

"Well that's nice and all but I want something a bit more filing than frozen dairy produce," Yang cut in, moving into the kitchen to join Ranma, swiftly joined by Ren, who had woken up as the boys trooped in.

He simply looked at them shrugging his shoulders and gesturing over to where Nora had followed him out of their room, slinking into one of the chairs and actually nuzzling up into Velvets side, before nearly falling asleep again. "Pancakes for Nora," he said simply. "She needs her fix."

Ranma rolled his eyes, but he and Yang quickly got the cooking. "Where are Beni and Blake?" Ranma asked. "I saw Jaune begin dragged off by his sister on our way back."

"Blake needed some quiet time after today, and Beni to I suppose." Yang replied, "She might've already been cooking for herself and Glynda."

"So what kind of movies are we watching?" Ranma asked, looking over his shoulder at the TV before grimacing. "A romantic comedy really?"

"Well I suppose since you boys are here, we can have another vote," Coco drawled, waving her hand magnanimously.

"Good!" Said Ren, Ranma and Yatsuhashi, while Fox just nodded, staring with his blank eyes at Coco who huffed, but stared back just as intently.

The girls continued to watch their movie until dinner was prepared, simple fair for the most part and a lot of it to go around hungry Hunters, before they situated themselves in the sitting room to watch a new movie. This one was an action comedy, quickly made funnier as Ranma Coco and Yang seamlessly began to fall into an act like the three characters from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

This had everyone in stitches quickly. But after the day's exercises, most of them simply couldn't stay up for very long once they had full bellies and some alcohol in many of their systems, only Pyrrha and Ruby not having indulged. Most of them fell asleep where they were as the movie continued in the background.

None of them noticed how Neo had begun to question Ranma during the movie, or how swiftly she exited the room after they had all fallen asleep. She hadn't learned any real new information from Ranma, but the girls, Ruby especially, had been much more upfront about what they'd seen him do during the battle. That would have to do for now.

 **OOOOOOO**

The next two days went by far too quickly for the young Hunters in Waypoint as Glynda, Tacticus and Waypoint's mayor worked together to put the town back in order. In this, Glynda's power of telekinetic control was invaluable. Lilla Arc led teams of Hunters out into the surrounding forest, though the teams of students were mainly left behind. Sometimes a few of the partner pairs were sent with the experienced teams, but for the most part they stayed in the town, ostensibly to guard it but really just to rest. Even the Aura monsters like Jaune and Yang were sore after the fight they had been in.

At the same time they also continued their training under Ranma and the other teachers' watchful eyes. Yang, Pyrrha, and Ranma began to train the next day, which also proved to be the first time Ranma had to deal with Pyrrha in the morning.

Pyrrha groaned, turning away and mumbling burrowing deeper into the pillow to one side of her, which oddly enough grunted in turn, pushing away slowly. Pyrrha wrapped her arms around it, and only began to wonder about her pillows actual nature when she head to fight back a sneeze as some hair got in her nose. A giggle from nearby and the sudden click of a scroll taking a picture made her open one bleary, bloodshot eye to glare in the direction of the noise, hurling a bowl which was the closest thing

It was at that point Yang realized she had been using a sleeping Ruby as a body pillow. She eeped, moving away quickly only to fall off the end of the sofa she, Ruby and Weiss had been using the evening before with a thump.

This caused Yang to laugh at her again, along with Ranma, who was standing by the kitchen counter which separated the kitchen area from the rest of the penthouse suite. On the counter next to him were several bags of bagels.

Pyrrha reluctantly pushed herself to her feet, moving over to the two of them so as to not wake up the others scattered all around the suite. The only ones missing were Ragnar and his team, Coco, Fox and Jaune. "What are you up to," she asked, only then noticing that Jaune wasn't there. "And where is Jaune?"

"Jaune stayed with his sister and her team last night, mainly to catch up with his sister and call his family. He'll be back this afternoon when Lilla's team heads out for their patrol. Port should be free by then. He's going to give Jaune some one-on-one training to see if we can help him activate his Semblance." Ranma explained.

"That makes sense," Pyrrha replied. "And I suppose you two are heading out to train? Would you mind if I joined you?" Despite the difficulty she faced in actually waking up most mornings, Pyrrha was really interested in starting to train with Ranma.

"Sure, if you didn't look like you were going to fall asleep on your feet," Ranma replied with a smirk.

"That is what coffee is for," Pyrrha shot back tartly, rubbing at her eyes with the back of one hand in a way that struck Ranma as being incredibly cute for some reason.

Yang hid a grimace, but couldn't think up a reason to block Pyrrha from joining them that wouldn't sound either made up or jealous, which she didn't want. The best she could come up with was, "Are you sure you're good to go from Yesterday Pyrrha? You really pushed yourself in that fight against the Hydra, and you don't have my Semblance's ability to turn damage into Aura."

Pyrrha grunted at that, but still nodded. This nod became a little too deep, and Yang and Ranma watched as her eyes closed once more as she stood there nearly falling forward. Rolling her eyes and feeling a little silly about her earlier worry, Yang put an arm around Pyrrha's shoulder, pulling her in the direction of one of the rooms. "Come on then Red, let's get you dressed."

The two of them returned soon, and found Ranma had made up some coffee and tea for them. "What no balaclava or Mame-daifuku, this morning? I'm disappointed." Yang teased, grabbing up the tea as Pyrrha took a sip from the coffee, becoming pleasantly surprised when she detected some chocolate in there, as well as quite a bit of milk.

"Meh, what'd you give me for pampering ya like that?" Ranma asked, keeping his voice down as Yang had. The others were still asleep, though he had been surprised that Fox and Yatsuhashi hadn't joined them yet. Or rather he had been, until he noticed Yatsuhashi asleep in the center of the suite with Velvet curled up alone on a sofa, while team CFVY's room was locked, a sock on the doorknob. Even Ranma knew what that meant.

"Hmm, how about a kiss~?" Yang asked, running a finger up Ranma's chest and then along the side of her neck. "I'm sure we could work out some kind of trade…"

"I, uh, I don't think so, no…" Ranma blushed but didn't move away, staring into Yang's violet eyes.

Pyrrha looked at them over her coffee mug. The sight of the two of them flirting should have at best amused her. Pyrrha came from a culture that was quite open about affection between couples. But for some reason Pyrrha felt herself… not irritated precisely, but disturbed at some level, just as she had the day before watching Yang cling to Ranma.

She set her coffee mug down resolutely, gesturing to the door. "Come on you've got me up now, let's get to it before I decide to just go back to bed."

Nodding, Ranma led them not out of the hotel but up to the roof. "I scouted this out earlier, and I thought it would be a good place to train. There isn't really any place in the town we could use really, unless we head out past the walls."

The two girls nodded, talking quietly to one another about the battle yesterday, commenting not on their own parts in it but those of their teammates. The consensus was that Weiss and Ruby were the real surprises of the day, though Yang had known how lethal her little sister could be going into the battle. To her, it was Ruby's ability to command that really came as a surprise.

"By the way, who won that contest?" Pyrrha asked absentmindedly as they exited the elevator and moved to the stairs leading up out onto the roof.

"I think it was either me, Port or Glynda, though since Glynda wasn't actually part of the contest, I suppose it's me or Port. Doesn't really matter though since we never set the stakes." Ranma replied.

Yang huffed. "I still say it should have been straight kills, no weighting them based on size."

"You would still have lost then. Or didn't Nora do a lot of damage with those grenades of hers?" Pyrrha asked innocently.

Yang mock-growled at the other girl as Ranma pushed open the door onto the roof. She moved forward past him, staring at the sun coming up over the horizon, a wide smile on her face as the first rays of the sun hit her. Beside her Pyrrha too watched, smiling. "So pretty…"

Beside them, Ranma bowed his head, praying to the Sun God Amaterasu before standing upright, pushing Pyrrha in the shoulder. "See, there are some good things about getting up this early, isn't there?"

"Mmmm I suppose so, though it isn't something I can see becoming a habit." Pyrrha replied, turning to him with a smile on her face while Yang laughed.

For just a moment as Pyrrha looked at him, her green eyes shining and a smile on her face, with the backdrop of the sun and her red hair, Ranma blushed, nearly struck dumb by just how amazing she looked. _Holy hell, she is really gorgeous… just as much as Yang, if not more._

He shook it off quickly though and moved back, gesturing to the two girls. "Okay, let's get started. I think some stretches, then a few minutes sparring two on one to start, then I'll want to work some more kicks into your style Yang. At the same time, I'll work with you Pyrrha on using your Semblance in new and unusual ways. Sound good?"

Both girls nodded, moving into a few stretches.

Later that day the other teens woke up, and soon found themselves paired off with different teachers, with Fox and Ren joining Ranma's training. To her chagrin, Nora was not allowed to join Ren, instead working with Port along with Yatsuhashi and Jaune. Coco was dragged off by Glynda to help in the organization efforts. Ren joined Ruby, Velvet and Weiss under Beni's instruction. The older redhead taught them several different endurance exercises, as well as meditation exercises designed to get them more in touch with and help them enlarge their Aura reserves. Beni also went out of her way to help Blake get used to and even practice how she was going to tell her team about her past. Ren received much the same, but Ranma also started to train him in creating his own Aura space.

Pyrrha didn't get much in the way of physical that first day, but she and Ranma worked until she was nearly exhausted coming up with new ways to use her Semblance. They first tried metal filings. A cloud of small metal filings spiraled around Pyrrha between her and Yang who cocked her fist back expectantly. "Ready Pyr?"

"Ready!" Pyrrha replied, her brow furrowed in concentration, her Aura noticeably glowing around her.

The next instant she grunted as the first shotgun blast burst through her makeshift shield. Narrowing her eyes she concentrated even harder, condensing the cloud of metal filings to half the original size. That blocked Yang's next assault, but the shield exploded under the impact.

"Hmm, so metal filings won't work very well, unless you're able to hold them in place. I think we should give this one a miss. It takes too much concentration, and isn't really tough enough." Ranma mused.

Yang nodded seriously while Pyrrha gasped in deep lungfuls of air. "Yeah, I don't think that works as a defense. As an attack, I don't see it doing much either, not enough stopping power. Unless you used needles instead of metal filings?"

They tried to step up the size of the bits of metal, and found that ones of about a toenail's length worked best. Pyrrha could control them easily enough, and they could be used for both attack and defense. It did however take far too much concentration for Ranma to say it could ever be used in a fight. He frowned, staring down at the multiple heaps as he began to think. "Hmm… I wonder… I need to think about this some more Pyrrha, sorry. I think we might be onto something with the metal bits in terms of defense. Maybe come up with a way to install a holding spot in your shield then enlarge it using that method?"

Before Pyrrha could reply, Ranma went on. "However for now I think we need to work on your ability to concentrate on both maintaining your control over these objects as well as other things."

"Yes, it was rather hard to keep the scrap all together, I doubt I could do that in… what are you doing?" Pyrrha trailed off, looking as Ranma reached into his so-called Aura space pocket, pulling out numerous small, bullet shaped balls of rubber. Or at least she thought they were rubber, but then one or two of them evidently were clear rubber containers of some sort filled with liquid, which sloshed noticeably as Ranma rolled them in his hands.

Ranma smirked at her, then looked over at Yang, who had begun to chuckle evilly. She took a stance as Ranma addressed Pyrrha. "Well, the best way to get used to concentrating on that kind of technique while also doing something else is to, heh, practice it. So with that, **dodge**!" he suddenly shouted, tossing one of the paint balls toward her.

But to his surprise Ranma's assault didn't take Pyrrha from surprise. Pyrrha quickly summoned Akuo to her using it to block the rubber ball, while also dancing around Yang's charge. She laughed, rolling away further attacks as she began to concentrate, pulling the small metal bits around her arm like a floating suit of armor. "You're going to have to do better than that!"

"Oh you shouldn't'a said that…" Ranma drawled, tossing more and more rubber balls the redhead's way. Yang too laughed, that is until Ranma accidently tagged her in the hair with one of the small paint balls.

Both Pyrrha and Ranma stopped moving for a moment as Yang slowly reached up to the back of her head, where a bright green paint ball had smashed into and of course exploded against and into her hair. She then looked over to Ranma her eyes changing from lilac to red in an instant. " **DIE!** " she screamed, racing toward Ranma.

"Um, training over for now I thinkKK!" Ranma yelped, ducking under a furious punch by the equally furious blonde. Rolling away, Ranma then bounced up and out over the rooftops and away. Yang went after him with a bellow of rage, leaving Pyrrha, spattered with paint and exhausted, to fall to her knees laughing her head off as she watched her friends disappear over the rooftops.

 **OOOOOOO**

Elsewhere in the city, Weiss had begged off of exercising for an hour. Instead, she was knocking on the door to the room assigned to Brutus' team during their time in Waypoint. It wasn't in the hotel, rather a small apartment designed for Hunter teams. She was actually quite nervous, the seniors having somewhat intimidated her the day before with their level of professionalism and lethality.

Thankfully for her, the person she was here to talk to answered the door. The girl she knew as Trixie stood in a plain black t-shirt and spats, her short spiky black hair, looking like she had just oiled it, her metal piercings from yesterday replaced by multi-colored ones. She cocked her head looking at Weiss, then sighed and gestured to the room behind her. "Suppose you better come in then Weissie."

Flushing slightly at the old childhood nickname Weiss bit her lip to stop her first response, following the girl inside, where she found the main room of the apartment had been converted to a room much like the dorm rooms back in Beacon. Naomi and Ian were still asleep, both of them simply flopped out onto their beds still sleeping from yesterday's exertions, though Brutus was gone. Trixie led through that area to the outer balcony, flopping into one of the chairs there. "So, you've no doubt got questions Schnee, why don't we just get them out of the way quickly?"

Weiss sat down primly across from the older girl, still staring at her. "Trixie, I, I know why you ran away from home. Trying to marry you off like Lime Brindenburg was trying, well that's just barbaric! I, my father will never win any rewards for, for being a good man or father, but even he would never try something like that with me or Winter. But, but you've changed so much! What happened!?"

The Trixie Brandenburg that Weiss had remembered from when she was younger had long black hair she always wore loose down to her rear, something she had always been very proud of. She had also been a, well Yang would probably have called Trixie Brandenburg a girly girl, if a somewhat athletic sort. It had been Trixie and her older sister who had kept the ponies that Weiss had told her friends about when they were talking during initiation.

But Trixie had run away from home several years ago and indeed all of Atlas when her cousin had gained control of the family. Lime Brandenburg was a chauvinistic asshole who made Cardin look like an understanding, empathic individual in comparison. Lime was very vocal about his opinion that a woman's place was in the home, popping out babies, but he was such a good businessman that the family tolerated his opinions. Luckily, Isapis Brandenburg had already been married by the time Lime gained control of the family.

"Well, I've been out and about on my own for four years Weiss, and it's been even longer since ya last saw me." Trixie drawled. "I had to look out for myself for a year, then entered Beacon, where I met Naomi, Ian and Brutus pretty much right off the bat. Since I have some anger fucking issues, I decided to pair with the three of them. My knowledge of computer work and rocketry led me to building my little gyros. Now if I didn't always fucking run out of them I'd be a happy girl."

Rolling her eyes at how she had gone off topic, Trixie explained some of how she had escaped Atlas, leaving several of her family's security guards behind her unconscious. Once she had reached a port she had force-activated her Semblance by the simple expedient of paying an Ex-Hunter to do it for her, and from there made her way by sea to Vale. "And my name's not Brandenburg anymore, my name's Andrea Furvus, got it?"

"I, I understand, and far be it from me to comment on how strange it is to see someone from our station as a Hunter. But, but your looks, and your hair! I , you were so proud of your hair, I never met anyone who was more proud of her hair until I met my teammate Yang Xiao Long." Weiss said, staring first at the short spiky hair and then at the number of piercings the other girl had.

"Our station? Hah, all that high end crap doesn't matter out on the pointy end Weiss, the faster you realize that the better. The Grimm sure as shit don't care about it, and I bet your teammates don't care about where you're from either, only what you can do." Andrea retorted. As for my looks, well, some of it came about as a way to hide who I was, the rest, the rest is all fucking me! Can you imagine how liberating it is to be able to curse and bitch and moan and drink and generally carouse without anyone trying to stop me or running to my family about it?"

Weiss gulped, looking away, somewhat distressed by how different Andrea was from Trixie. _Was she really like that underneath all the time? Good grief, and I though my family was a pressure cooker. At least I always had my sister, and I knew that my father would at least not sell me off, regardless of his high expectations._ "I, I've already begun to learn that thank you. But if you think I'm going to cut my hair like you have, you can think again."

"Hah, you wouldn't look good with short hair anyway, you're too short as it is. But tell me, what brought one of the Schnee daughters to become a Huntress?"

 **OOOOOOO**

While the teams which had been involved in the battle of Waypoint were recovering, the Vale Council was busy using the publicity of the successful defense of the city far and wide pushing their pro-hunter training program. Ranma might not quite have understood how serious a matter this was, but Grimm attacks of this nature were so very rarely stopped without tremendous loss of life it was both a moment to celebrate and a mystery to those in power despite having Glynda's written reports to go over.

They also began to put pressure on Ozpin, not to follow their demands on Beacon's curriculum. Indeed, they were willing to give there, as well as enlarge the school's budget. But they had some demands for him in turn, which made Ozpin's eyes narrow in irritation behind his glasses. After having proven wrong in their hidden foes using the attack as a cover to find Amber, he was in no mood to give in to the demands of politicians who were so afraid they hid their faces even from their most important allies. "Out of the question councilors. I will agree to allow Brutus and his team to graduate early. They are already at a professional level, they only need to sit final exams and receive their licenses. But as for advancing the other teams, that is something I will not condone."

"Ozpin, you've seen the footage! Can you say that you can teach the likes of Pyrrha Nikos, this Yang Xiao Long, Coco Adel, Yatsuhashi Daishi or any of the others anything they do not already know in terms of combat?" Asked one of the councilors, his image shaking it's head.

"Ozpin you know that after the fall of Semaphore in Vacuo the need for Hunters being visible throughout our nation and in Vacuo has never been greater. And that only one out of every three teams you graduate are good enough to operate out past human habitations. We lost seven ships recently on a cross ocean run to Mistral, all hands lost because they didn't have enough protection." Another councilmen said, his voice coming over as grim and understanding in turns despite the software muddying his voice. "On top of that, this has never happened before, a full Grimm incursion smashed to pieces with so little loss of life."

"We've been getting calls, hell demands from Mistral for us to send this team JNPR there thanks to a few recent incursions of Grimm in their northernmost valleys. Having the teams who stopped the Grimm at Waypoint on call and loaning them out to Mistral to help there would earn us some major clout publicly and politically." Another councilman chimed in.

"You pick out the best combatants among the teens with malice aforethought councilors," Ozpin retorted. "A team is like a chain, they are only as strong as their weakest link. Young Ms. Rose is also a minor. Her skills are immense, her youth and ability to plan a detriment. Ms. Schnee has already come a long way in terms of working with others, but her endurance and knowledge of the world is still far too low to consider advancing her team. Jaune Arc is unpolished, Lie Ren has endurance issues, and Nora issues with controlling herself. Not every problem can be solved by bashing it's head in with a hammer after all. No councilors, I will not allow the freshman teams, who should never have even been involved in the battle in the first place, be advanced beyond their abilities."

"What about the other teams, CFVY, RUST and the senior teams, GRNG and SAIL?" asked another councilman. "I agree with you about Ruby Rose, she is far too young to be advanced further. But that is not the case with the other teams."

"…Perhaps, though I would ask you wait on team CFVY. They are after all only sophomores themselves, there is much was can teach them still."

"Bah, not from what I saw, though I'll admit that the few videos we've seen concentrated on the Invincible Girl. And I still say we should be able to make better use of her and this Xiao Long girl at the very least, they took out a Hydra for goodness sake!" the first senator said again.

"I still think we should wait until after the Vytal Festival to do anything at least. Having those teams represent us would be a massive PR boon, especially having Nikos, a Mistrali native, competing for Vale instead of Mistral."

The conversation continued from there, with the councilors continuing to first cajole then pressure Ozpin to try and speed up the freshman teams' training. Cajolery didn't work, nor pressure of course, Ozpin knew where entirely too many bones were buried for any of the councilors to really have any leverage over him. That didn't stop them from flapping their gums uselessly for hours on end however, but he eventually had to agree to let them be sent on low-key missions, show the flag type of missions, so long as they always had a teacher nearby just in case. And he had not been able to completely dissuade their interest in Ranma either. It was a sign of a shift in the council that Ozpin didn't quite like, but he couldn't stop it. His power as head of Beacon was immense, but not that great in terms of how much power he could bring to bear against the councilors. He could manipulate them he could not entirely turn them away.

Later that night Ozpin leaned back in his office chair, sighing as one hand kneaded his bum thigh as he reread Glynda's report. Her report to him was somewhat more detailed than the one she had sent to the council, though that one had closely matched the final news conference she had given after the crisis had passed. Ozpin's went into detail on Ranma's abilities and the impact of his activating his Semblance, which the official line barely touched on, simply saying that a Beacon teacher had killed the Dryder soon after it had shown itself.

 _Fascinating. If not for the combat ability he showed, I would have thought this was Spring's doing. But that is impossible. Could Ranma really have some kind of emotive-response Semblance? Or could he have found some other kind of power out there in the Grimm Lands? I am going to have to question him very closely on that when they return. And of course I will also have to meet with James when he arrives, and see to Amber. Still, I think in many ways, the mystery around Ranma could be the most important thing to look into..._

 **End Chapter**

This is a transition chapter. I had actually written up a full battle between Ozpin and Cinder, but then I realized there was no way someone so cautious as Cinder would allow herself to be tricked into a confrontation with Ozpin at this point. Not when she can be so much more dangerous from the shadows, and had basically been ordered not to by her patroness. I had also written up some notes on a few more serious scenes, but couldn't quite hit the right tone in them - all the characters sounded the same to me. Argh.

However, I am generally speaking happy with the chapter - lots of interaction, Ranma realizing how attractive Pyrrha is as well as Yang, and Blake and Yang having a quick but rather deep heart to heart. I also set up a way to remove the main characters from the school in the future, which will let me both break further from canon, and explore the rest of the world. So there will be a lot more world building and character interactions outside of school going forward. Thank goodness.

Anyway, hope you all liked it, and as always please review!


	11. Chapter 11

I can't draw and I can't animate.

So, once more the monthly poll went very differently from here in comparison to over on Patty ron. On fanfic Fate Touched in Middle Earth took the poll (Master Splinter voice: hah, I tell a funny) position with 282. BUuuuut, it only took in 332 votes over on Patty ron. However, since it is one of the stories which hasn't been updated in a long time which is still alive, I added in my own 200 votes to it, giving it a total of 814. in second place here was Anything Goes Game Changer, with 260. It won 326 votes over on Patty. This gave it a total of 586.

third place here was Gods and Devils, again quite close, with 241. Elsewhere it brought in more votes than Game changer at 332. This gave it a total of 573.

And in fourth place, but **first** over on Patty Ron, was  Semblance of Hope. On fanfic it only brought in 157, but here it blew away the competition, with 770. This gave it a total of 927, making it the winner.

 **However,** because Fate Touched hasn't been updated in a while, and I put my own votes toward it, I then put up another poll over on Patty Ron between Fate Touched and what i call teaser chapters, one off story starters which I post over there. If you want to see more, sign up and you'll get them and omakes from my  Magic of the Force universe where I send Harry and co. back to Hogwarts. Thankfully for those of you looking forward to Fate Touched, it won this second poll with 60% of the votes. It will be up by the end of the evening.

This has been lightly betaed by myself and Hiryo, but neither of us are as good at spotting grammar mistakes as Michael, so there will no doubt be more small mistakes throughout.

* * *

 **Chapter 11: Wild Horse and Iron General**

To Pyrrha the two days, or rather one half day, one full day, and this morning, the students had spent in Waypoint had passed quickly. Now it was time to get back to Beacon. They would have Sunday night to get back into the swing of things before waking up early on Monday for classes.

It seemed almost surreal to Pyrrha that Professor Goodwitch and the others expected the students to simply go back to their normal school lasted life after the battle here, but that was what would happen. _And in a way, isn't that what anyone would want? The ability to throw off the horror and return to their daily lives once their job is done?_

Having wanted to have some time to herself and having nothing in the way of packing to do, Pyrrha, still dressed in her Huntress's garb, had gone up to the roof, and now sat on the roof's balustrade, staring out over the vista beyond the town as she thought about things, unmindful of the several cameras on her. She was aware of them, indeed Pyrrha had caught the gleam of sunlight off the paparazzi's cameras a time or two, but for once she didn't care about them. She instead concentrate on simply enjoying the sight of the mountains, the forest, and the wind in her hair.

No one else was with her at the moment, a rarity but one she enjoyed at present. Not that she didn't love her friends, but some time to step back and reflect was nice. And she had spent a lot of time every evening with Ren, Jaune and Nora, let alone the others as it was. During the days however, was another matter.

Instead of working with Professor Port as the teachers had initially planned, Jaune had spent most Saturday with her sister and her team, skipping out on even breakfast and lunch with his team. According to him, the two Fox twins, Kathy and Karen Cobalt, were training him in various sword techniques. While Pyrrha's shield techniques could carry over to Jaune and they had trained together several times since school began, Pyrrha wasn't a straight up swordsman. She preferred to use her weapons ability to change forms into different weapons seamlessly, taking advantage of whichever worked best, which made her incredibly dangerous in terms of her adaptability.

But Jaune had to physically switch from one weapon to another hence why he needed a different style and why his parent's refusal to train him in sword-fighting had hurt his ability to use Crocea Mors as well as he should. At Lila's behest (read orders, same thing when those hawk-eyes locked on you) the two twins had begun to work with him the moment he had woken up Saturday, while Pyrrha had started training with Ranma and Yang. He had come back that night always looking a little dazed and confused, but he could honestly tell her that he was progressing, which was good. _It will be interesting to see what he has learned when we get back to Beacon._

The N and R of team JNPR were also not around at present. Ren was still exhausted from the battle, his aura's ability to recover almost worse than the size of his reserves. He didn't even have enough to help with the soreness of his body Saturday which was a severe limitation on his fighting ability. His aura control however was apparently very good and Ranma had, after working with him yesterday, mentioned this morning that he thought Ren would probably be the first one to learn that odd expanded pocket technique of his. Whereas Pyrrha had already begun to slowly push her aura out into articles of clothing.

 _I look forward to the first time I can use my red sash as an actually weapon,_ Pyrrha though now, her nose wrinkling as she held back a smirk that would have been decidedly outside her normal attitude. _The look of surprise on my opponent on its own might well be worth the time spent learning the technique in the first place_.

Nora, to her whining complaint every time she was around, had not been with Ren during his training with 'the bagel lover' as she called Ranma. Instead she, unlike Jaune, had worked with Port as initially planned all day yesterday. She had come back in time that evening to join the girls at one of the local salons, but whatever Port, Brutus and Yatsuhashi had put her through had tired the normally energetic orange-haired girl out almost as much as the battle. At the moment she and Ren were both watching some anime movie together.

Team RWBY, the only other team which Pyrrha really thought herself truly close to, were out in the field at present with Tacticus that morning, though they hadn't actually been assigned to, having been put through various training the day before. But they had gone out on Ruby's request. The younger girl was eager as always to help as much as they could to help continue the extermination of Grimm that had begun after the battle.

Pyrrha liked the younger girls fire, the innocent yet clear-cut determination she brought to being a hunter was always a pleasure to see. _It feels like everyone else had some other motive to become Hunters, but Ruby just wants to be a Hunter because she wanted to make the world a better place. There is a sense of purity in that. Whereas I, I suppose I wanted to make the world a better place too, but I also wanted to just get away from my fame, to stop being the Invincible Girl and just be Pyrrha again._ She snorted at the thought, one hand rising to hide her mouth as she did. _And boy, didn't that end quickly!_

"Heh, now that's some deep thinking you're doing there. I can see the smoke," said a voice teasingly from behind her, causing Pyrrha to turn, lifting her legs up over the side of the balustrade to do so but otherwise not moving from where she was sitting.

Ranma stood about two feet behind her having somehow snuck up on her without her noticing. His hair was somewhat wet, indicating he had just had a shower. "Want to share?"

Pyrrha chuckled. _"Oh, nothing in particular. I guess I was just thinking about the battle, about going back to school, and about other things…" About the Hydra, how I challenged it like that, and why._

"Deep thoughts indeed," Ranma said, moving to stand next to her, standing up on the rooftop as she turned back to the vista beyond Waypoint his own eyes looking out over the distance to the mountains separating Vale from Vacuo. "About your fame I suppose, and about how this is going to simply add to it?"

"The thought has unfortunately crossed my mind," Pyrrha said dryly, shaking her head. "I wish it could be otherwise, but once you're in the limelight, it's very hard to be a part of something this… this **momentous** , and not find yourself dragged deeper into the public eye."

"Speaking of…" Ranma said, and suddenly he was holding three small stones. A millisecond later he hurled them out one after another to the sounds of cracking glass and curses from around the hotel on various rooftops and windows. "It's called privacy numb nuts!" he roared, causing some of the people on the streets below to look up at him in confusion, though having become used to the Hunters hanging out on the roof of the hotel, they turned their attention back to what they were doing quickly.

All save the three photographers. Two of them had not been able to get off a final picture before Ranma's stones found their equipment, smashing their cameras to pieces in their hands. One however had, and he gleefully raced off with it. When he looked into his camera at the image however he paused, staring.

In the image, Ranma stood on the roof by Pyrrha side. His shield was on one arm, no other weapon visible. His ponytail flew gently in the wind as he stared out into the sunset. Next to him Pyrrha sat, one leg dangling over the edge, the other pulled up to her chest, her weapons laid out next to her, shining brightly as the sunlight hit them. Pyrrha's red hair too flew in the wind, and she stared out in the same direction as Ranma.

There was just something about the image, the photographer reflected. Not just the fact that he didn't really have any background or anything to add to it, but the picture itself which he thought he should save for a while, just in case. _After all, I've got more than enough pictures of Nikos from before this fellow shows up,_ he photographer thought, briefly blanking on who Ranma was, other than a teacher at Beacon. The news that Ranma was the Azure Warden had yet to truly spread in the news just yet, but it would soon enough.

Back with the two hunters, Pyrrha laughed, shaking her head and looking up at Ranma appreciatively. "That's not the first time you've tried to protect my privacy. Thank you for that, it seems as if far too few people realize that even celebrities need time for themselves."

"You're welcome, but was that a hint for me to leave as well?" Ranma asked smirking slightly before sitting down next to her, taking off his shield and setting it to one side as his legs dangled next to hers.

"No, of course not," Pyrrha said smiling as Ranma sat down. For a moment they were both quiet then Pyrrha spoke up again. "It's… I'm a little bemused at the idea of going back to classes like everything is normal once more. I, I also am questioning how well I did in the fight, as you said. I know you helped me analyze my style yesterday and how we, that is the freshman, did, and I know you've been helping me figuring out new ways of using my Semblance, but I…" Pyrrha paused, looking away.

Staring at her profile, Ranma thought then asked slowly, "The Hydra. Glynda said that you tried taken it on by yourself before Yang joined you?"

Pyrrha nodded, biting her lip, still looked away as she did before turning back to Ranma, their knees now almost touching. "Yes. I didn't expect the sight of that particular Grimm to affect me so much, but it did. I nearly lost control entirely."

"Why?" Ranma asked. There was no judgment in his tone, simply understanding and something like compassion. "What did a Hydra do to you?"

"To me personally? Nothing," Pyrrha replied, a scowl on her face. "To me and my family, a lot." She sat silent again then continued to speak, her voice now much more serious. "Hydra are stupid. They're stupid, but they're also very hard to stop once they're on a rampage. We still don't know where it came from, or how it got into the valley, but one of them rampaged through the farming community that my grandparents…"

Pyrrha paused again, choking a little and looking away. She flushed as she felt Ranma's arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a sidelong hug, but he said nothing, waiting for Pyrrha to talk.

Eventually she began again, still not looking at him, opting instead to look out over the town of Waypoint and beyond. "We have no idea why it went on a rampage, or where it came from as I said. It just came crashing down the mountain side, and there wasn't a trained Hunter anywhere nearby. By the time one arrived, the farming community was in shambles and in my grandparents…" She paused choking again, though no tears came to her eyes. Pyrrha had cried out all the tears she could set shed on this memory years ago.

"So you wanted revenge rather than to challenge yourself?" Ranma asked, though there was still no censure or condemnation in his voice. The reason for that became clear as he went on squeezing her gently around the shoulders before moving back, turning to face her, pulling up his legs into a lotus position on the balustrade as she did the same. "Do you think you're the first person to mess with Grimm and think that?"

"I remember the first time I ran into a Leo after the fall of semaphore. I was still training with…" he paused shaking his head, with a wry smile. "Er never mind. I was living out in the wilds beyond Vacuo's border and a large part of our remaining safe out there was not fighting the Grimm, remaining hidden and moving through the wilds without leaving any trace. But when I saw that Leo, I lost it. I could only remember… well, you can imagine what would've happened to this town if we hadn't been beaten back this attack. And I bet you know a lot more about what that Hydra did to your grandparent's farming community."

Pyrrha nodded, and Ranma went on. "I saw it happen in front of me, I fought through the town, house to house, saw the bodies of friends, strangers and teachers, saw them torn apart, and saw the Grimm doing it. And with all those memories going through my head, I couldn't stop myself. I killed the Leo eventually, but I nearly got myself and my… benefactor… killed at the same time since our fight had attracted several other Grimm in the area."

"Revenge is a curse," Ranma finished, turning away and staring out at the mountains again. "My…people… I suppose you could say had a saying. He who seeks revenge should first dig two graves."

"My people have a saying that is much the same," Pyrrha said with a nod. "And before I met the Hydra, I would have said that I was the last person to go on a wild crusade against them. But when I saw it, I couldn't stop myself."

Ranma nodded, thinking back about all he had heard about this battle, which was quite a lot, before replying. Yang had bragged about her and Pyrrha's fight against the Grim, about how she and the 'Invincible Girl' as Yang put it, had taken out of high A class nearly S-class level Grimm between the two of them. "I think you never really lost control. You were willing to accept help, to work with Yang, and you thought your way through the battle right?"

Pyrrha nodded, and Ranma went on, now looking into Pyrrha's Jade eyes earnestly, trying not to notice how attractive the face around them was, or the flush rising to his cheeks at the fact he was indeed aware of that. _Totally not appropriate moment for that hormones!_ "I think that's part of the reason why you wanted to fight the Hydra, to test yourself like I said. Not just in the normal way, but deep down I bet you've always wondered, 'if I was there could I have saved them?'"

The redhead flinched a little at that, staring at Ranma, her jade green eyes widening.

But Ranma went on inexorably. "If I had known then what I do now could I have done anything to help? Trust me, again, you're not the only one who's ever asked that question. At least in your case, you got an affirmative reply. A resounding yes actually," he said, reaching out to poke her in the shoulder with a grin.

Pyrrha however did not look away, staring at Ranma thoughtfully now. "But even after this fight, you don't think that you could have?"

"Alone I could not have stopped the fall of Semaphore," Ranma said bluntly, the verbal equivalent of tearing the duct tape off a gaping wound. "Even with all of the abilities I've gained since, even with what you guys call my Semblance, I couldn't have stopped the Grimm from winning there. There were too many of them our defenses had already shattered unlike the walls here, and there were just too many Grimm and too few trained Hunters around. Could I have saved lives, could I have made the evacuation easier? Hell the fuck yeah. Could I have changed the outcome? No, and trust me, that hurts."

"You made a difference here," he said sternly, poking Pyrrha in the shoulder again, this time much harder. "So don't be down on yourself for going off half-cocked against that Hydra. In the long run, you pinning it down and then taking it out was the best thing you could have done. And I don't think you'll lose control again like that not after you've proven yourself against it. I know I didn't when I next saw a Leo."

The hand poking Pyrrha's shoulder now gripped it and Ranma turned away, gesturing back over his shoulder with his free hand. "Now come on, team RWBY just got back as I was coming up here, and the bullheads're due in to take us back to Beacon. We're no longer needed here."

Pyrrha smiled, reaching up and squeezing his hand then turning around where she sat, picking up her weapons and sliding them into place on her back, as Ranma did the same with his shield. "Of course, and thank you, Ranma. That, that makes me feel better."

Ranma smiled but didn't reply verbally and they headed down into the hotel, grabbing the rest of team JNPR, including Jaune, who had returned from meeting with his sister one last time a few minutes ago. Her partner looked at Pyrrha questionably, and she shrugged. "Thinking deep thoughts, I took lost track of time. I'm sorry."

"That's fine Pyrrha," Jaune said with a laugh. "At least someone around here thinks deep thoughts," he said slyly looking over at Nora.

Nora popped up. "I don't need anyone to think my deep thoughts for me. I've already got Renny-bear for that!"

"Yes, yes she does," Ren said dryly. "Although that doesn't mean I'm going to help you with your math homework Nora."

"Please!" Nora said, slumping to her knees in front of her partner, holding her hand together imploringly. "I haven't done it yet and it's due tomorrow!"

Pyrrha laughed as she joined her team and Ranma turned around, leading the way out of the hotel room. They gathered up the other teams one after another and then marched through the town to the landing pad.

There they met up with Glynda and the other teachers as well as Brutus and his team. With them were a foursome Ranma had yet to meet personally, team CRSH, another senior team that had arrived late in the night after the battle had ended. Since then, they had made up for missing the battle and spent most of their time out in the field, using their bullhead to hunt and destroy any group of Grimm they could spot from the air, pushing out even further than the other Hunter teams.

But judging by the way Brutus was holding one of them, Brutus and his team had more personal reasons to be happy the other seniors were here than just their firepower. The sight of the taller than average Brutus with the petite girl,she was a short blonde girl with spiky blond hair loose to her shoulders and stood as short as the M and M twins, should have been comical. But the looks in their eyes and the way they held one another made it a romantic one, even to Ranma.

"So, who're they?" Ranma asked, gesturing. "I mean, I know the team name, but…"

"That's Charlotte, and her team, Roland, Soren and Haley." Coco explained, smirking at the site as they all watched Brutus lean down slightly, picking up Charlotte and kissing her on the lips for a moment.

This caused blushes among the watching freshman or grins depending on their disposition. "They've been the power couple of Beacon for three years running," Coco explained, laughing at the poor ickle freshies. "It wasn't one of those in idiotic love at first sight things, but damn when they built up to it, they built something beautiful."

"That's so sweet," Pyrrha said smiling happily, as Yang and Blake both nodded. Velvet was blushing like Ruby and Weiss, but she had a smile on her face too while the boys simply looked a little wistful, even Ren. The only one who didn't was Fox, who smiled a secret little smile on his face as he stood perfectly still next to Coco.

Glynda looked over at Ranma, cocking her head indicating he should join her and the other teachers. When he did he began to explain. "As you know we will be leaving Lila and the other teams from Vacuo as well as Charlotte and Brutus' teams here, while we and the younger teams head back to Beacon. With this area now completely denuded of Grimm, this allows us an opportunity to push into the mountains between us and Vacuo, even clear out some of the denser pockets of Grimm that have been weakened by exerting themselves here. We should be able to clear at least 15 to 20 kilometers of mountain road entirely of Grimm."

"I had planned to leave you and Beni behind to help, but Professor Ozpin has asked us not to. Instead, Brutus will be in charge of the work going on here." When Ranma began to object, Glynda held up a hand. "I'm afraid knowledge that you killed the Dryder, and Professor Ozpin wants to talk to you about that. The Vale Council also wants to talk to you and I am afraid you are about to find yourself hobnobbing with the so-called rich and powerful."

"Meh," Ranma seven shrugged. "If they get too irritating I can live out in the wilds anyway." For some reason Glynda wasn't certain if that was a joke but still smiled at it and led the way onto the bullheads.

 **OOOOOOO**

At the same time that the heroes of Waypoint, as they were being called in the news, were heading home to Beacon, the councils of Vale, Mistral, and Vacuo were talking to one another. They did not include Ironwood or his representative in this, since they knew it would get back to Ozpin if they did. While Ironwood was more proactive than Ozpin tended to be, their friendship was such that no one wanted to take the chance he might disagree. Especially considering that this talk dealt with matters that were right in Ozpin's back yard.

"So he really is the Azure Warden," amazing said one of the Vacuo councils, nodding to his fellow who had just confirmed that. That worthy had actually been part of the evacuation of Semaphore, and had seen Ranma in action.

"If anything he's gotten better from what I saw," the second Vacuan councilman opined, leaning back in his chair. While his features were still invisible to his fellows, his body language and tone actually came through quite clearly because unlike the councils of Vale and Mistral, Vacuans didn't care so much about whether or not people knew who their leaders were. They only used such software when talking to their fellows from the other city-states because they didn't trust them in the least. The Great War wasn't that far in the past after all.

"Excellent!" said one of the Vale members enthusiastically, ignoring his foreign compatriots for a moment as he addressed his fellows. "The Azure Warden teaching at Beacon is a major coup. I think we can safely okay Ozpin's request for more funding."

There were some grumbles about that, but not many and the Vacuan put it into words. "Well, that's true enough. He might be teaching at Beacon, but he wastaught and raised in Vacuo."

The back-and-forth joshing on that moment went on for a while until one of the Mistrali members spoke up. It was the same one who had been laughing at how his fellows had been slapped down by Pyrrha during their conversation with her a few days back. "I think that it's just as interesting that he and the Music Summoner appear to be family. And while I'm certain that they are doing an excellent job of teaching the next generation of hunters at Beacon, surely we can make use of them elsewhere…"

"We can use them as flag bearers' types of missions for certain. Even teachers at Beacon are still Hunters, and still therefore under our command." Another Vale councilmen said, nodding so sharply that it was actually visible in his pickup. "What missions do we have coming up of that type?"

"We have a commemoration ceremony in Eastport. The port is also being troubled by several aquatic type grim, including a possible S-class, rumored to be the Great White. That's the first that springs to mind."

There were some shudders from the Vacuans at that name. Great Whites as the name implied was an S-class type Grimm which evolved in the water. It was, to put it mildly, disturbing to look upon for anyone with an active imagination.

"Hunting it down and killing it would seem to be a task suitable for someone like the Azure Warden and the Song Summoner. We could also send one of the other younger teams along, push Ozpin to have them in the field as often as we can," the same councilman said.

"No," one of the other Vale councilmembers said, shaking his head. "Oh, I agree with the idea, but instead of agreeing to Ozpin's new budgetary demands, we should link that agreement with his allowing us to reassign Benzaiten and this Ranma fellow to his agreement. If he fights us on that, we can then pull back from the demand that he let them take one of the younger student teams with them."

One of the other Vale members however disagreed. "I agree with the idea of sending Benzaiten and Ranma on this mission. But are we sure we want to push Ozpin again on the idea of using the freshman or sophomore teams? He was very firmly against that and we didn't get anywhere with him before the news that Ranma was the Azure Warden came out. Unless we wish to change the mandate of Beacon, which he will no doubt block with all of his…" the man paused to give his words added emphasis, " **considerable** political acumen we can't push any harder than we did."

When the man used the words 'considerable political acumen', he really meant resources both public and not, including information that many of the Vale councilmembers would have preferred to never see the light of day. Ozpin was far too entrenched at Beacon and knew where too many skeletons were buried for them to move against him for such a small reason.

"What about the senior teams?" asked one of the members from Vacuo before a Mistrali could speak up. Since Eastport served Mistral's trade with Vale the problems it was running into were ones he and the other members of Mistral wished to see solved of course, though relying on teams from Vale was not something any of them wanted to see.

"Team Crush, and team Blunt will be promoted straight to full Hunter status on Wednesday of this week in a ceremony in downtown Vale. Ozpin was willing to accede to us on that at least," said the last Vale councilman, his tone rather biting.

"Good. I don't know so much about team crush, but team blunt at least performed above and beyond during the battle of Waypoint."

"Team crush has been active in Atlas recently, and performed four extermination missions near Atlas' capital, and two near Schnee family holdings, wiping out…" one of Vale before pausing, pulling up some notes, a smaller screen visible to all the others as he red off notes from it. "420 C class, 690 D class, 10 B class and 7 A class Grimm during those missions. No S class, and these were of course separate fights, rather than a full-scale battle, but still an impressive total."

"Hmm, well, since they both in fact grew up in Vacuo, I think Vacuo should be the ones to use Ranma and Benzaiten as flag bearers first. We have some problems down on our southern border. A few of our mining towns have had issues with large-scale flying Grimm attacks. And surely sending them to aid us in this would be good publicity for your counsel too."

"Not nearly as good as wiping out an S class Grimm and its pack would in Eastport retorted one of the Mistrali councilmembers. "And we are willing to put our weight behind the idea, if we can get Nikos' team assigned at the same time! Think about the publicity of that."

The Vacuan councilmen shot back at that and the Vale representatives leaned back as one. IN this manner they let the discussion become almost a bidding war as they smiled gleefully.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma sneezed as Benzaiten did the same across from him. They looked at one another, before looking around quizzically. Glynda noticed the sudden movement and looked up from the book she was reading on her scroll to look at her fellow teachers in question. "What is it?"

"Someone's talking about us somewhere," Ranma said frowning and looking out the window. "I don't know who, but someone out there is talking about us, and I can't tell about what… That's a bad sign." _It almost felt like a sneeze number four, like someone was plotting to use me, but not quite. Still there's always been a very slight difference between four and three, someone plotting against me._

"That old superstition," Glynda said with a laugh. "Don't tell me you two believe in such unscientific bunk?"

"Would that truly be the oddest thing you've seen or heard?" Beni asked.

Glynda paused then nodded, conceding the point.

 **OOOOOOO**

At the same time that Ranma and the others were returning to Beacon the queen, or as she was known to others Cinder, sat cross-legged on her bed, her arms folded in her lap as she communicated telepathically with her backer. _"… So while we were not able to actually find where they are keeping Amber, we know that she is indeed there. In fact, Ozpin himself was talking about it to one of his fellow teachers, the one named Oobleck."_

" _ **He is a member of Ozpin's inner circle, and one whose knowledge of the past makes him more dangerous than his Semblance or even hunting experience would suggest. But Ozpin was speaking about it openly? Somewhere beyond his personal office?"**_ Salem asked sharply.

" _Yes, that concerned me as well at the time. I thought it might be a plant, but I can't see any reason for him to do so,"_ Cinder replied honestly. If he had any idea that he was being overheard, surely he would've attacked us. And he would not have allowed the virus we implanted into the Beacon security cameras to remain there. I have checked since, and the virus is working as I was told it would."

" _ **So if it is a trap, we know not what form it will take,"**_ Salem grumbled. _**"Unless one of your other agents or spies have been able to tell you anything?"**_ The rest of Salem's tools were busy elsewhere, and none of them were as intelligent or subtle as Cinder in any event, hence why she was the queen in this game.

" _General Ironwood is due to arrive at Beacon this afternoon,"_ cinders replied. _"In fact from the telemetry data I've seen of his ship, it slowed down and made a few stops here and there along the way that he didn't have to. If Ironwood had pushed things, he could have arrived on the heels of any clash between myself and Ozpin."_

" _ **Perhaps, Or perhaps Ozpin is playing a deeper game here."**_ Salem mused. _**"How certain are you that you and… Emerald is it?**_ " When Cinder replied in the affirmative, Salem went on. _**"How certain are you that the two of you were not spotted?"**_

To her credit in Salem's eyes Cinder thought about it, going through every aspect of the mission from start to finish before replying. This was something that few of Salem's other tools among humanity would have done.

" _I am certain that we were not spotted once we were on Beacon ground,"_ Cinder said at last. _"It is possible that Ozpin might have been expecting some kind of spy though, if not from me personally than from the Vale counsel, to find out more about us this new teacher that they have there, the supposed Azure Warden."_

" _ **Yes, that one. It took me some time, to connect the one who killed my Goliaths to that battle but now I can recall seeing him through the eyes of my Leo that he slew during the fall of Semaphore. A glorious battle, though it still cost me one of my finest upcoming generals. Interesting. That could give credence to the surmise that he planted that bit about the Fall maiden. Ozpin wants our attention entirely on Beacon. He has brought in these two new teachers, the Music Summoner and the Azure Warden to help make Beacon an even stronger fortress, pulling our attention there and then dealing with us in his place of strength."**_ Salem replied.

"And away from somewhere else?" Cinder contemplated, nodding as she understood the point. "The Crow perhaps, or the Raven? What other field agents does Ozpin have, and where could they hurt us most?"

" _ **Several, and perhaps on Menagerie,"**_ Salem replied dryly. _**"Never underestimate him. Still, I doubt he has any knowledge about how deep your fingers have gone into the Atlas military and its backers. That will be a major help in the future."**_

For a moment the connection fell silent, as both Salem and Cinder thought. "Still, we know where the Autumn Maiden is at least. And direct confrontation at this stage was never our intent, not until we weaken Ozpin's position. The court of public opinion is fickle after all," Cinder said breaking the silence.

" _ **True. But for now, this Roman Torchwick you are working with and the White Fang can continue to ramp up public fear and concern in Vale. I want more information on something that occurred during the battle of Waypoint."**_ Salem replied, changing the subject.

Cinder remained silent, not saying anything at this point since she knew it could be taken badly since she had argued against that mission, though not for very hard admittedly thinking that it was unnecessary and a waste of resources. But even Cinder had never considered that the attack would fail as horribly as it did.

Now the hunters and Huntresses were taking advantage of it, widening the cleared zone and wiping out numerous low level Grimm by the hundreds, possibly thousands. Worse, there was nothing Salem could do about it, since she could only truly command the higher level Grimm from any distance, and the high level Grimm in the area were dead now. This meant that the Grimm in that area would be completely disorganized, far too low level, and too low in numbers to really be worth anything for decades.

Not That Waypoint was that important, after all they weren't trying to cut Vacuo and Vale off from one another or anything of that nature. Their objective was far more surgical in nature. Yet even so, a setback like this one was irritating to Cinder's own mission since it helped give people hope, and built up respect for Ozpin and the Hunters in general.

Salem continued quickly. _**"There was a Maiden involved in the battle," she said bluntly, and continued on from there ignoring Cinder's mental gasp of shock. "Some of the… what you would call feelings, senses that I was able to pull from my pawns pointed to the Spring Maiden. But she is too old, and was never frontline fighter. Stranger than that, the visual imagery I saw through my Dryder's eyes does not match that impression…"**_

Suddenly Cinder gasped, clenching her hands so hard her nails began to dig into her skin despite her semblance before she grabbed at the coverlet as Salem forced open their telepathic connection enough to actually send into her brain some of the images that Salem had pulled from her Grimm pawns. To feel Salem's touch was one thing, there was a darkly seductive quality to her mind. But the touch of the lower level Grimm's minds like this was 1000 times worse with the seductive aspect removed entirely. _Like drowning in turpentine_ Cinder thought, even as she tried to process the information she was being given.

It was confusing seeing the world through Grimm eyes everything tinted red, emotions appearing in a kaleidoscope of lesser colors, mixed with that red tint to say nothing of seeing through so many eyes. Yet even so, Cinder was able to make out what was going on. It was definitely a man, fighting mostly hand-to-hand from what she could see, literally beating the Dryder to death with his bare hands.

 _That was a rather terrifying thought, someone able to beat a S-class Grimm with his bare hands. I thought only Ozpin, Port and Ironwood would be able to do that_ , Cinder thought to herself, keeping that thought from Salem with difficulty.

The connection was over in an instant but it still left Cinder gasping and shuddering, blood running from her eyes and nose, her mind unable to handle that level of Salem's touch for very long. _**"That was the being who had the power of the spring maiden, yet from what I can tell, it was a man."**_ Salem said, ignoring her Queen's pain.

" _That's impossible,"_ Cinder said, forcing the 'words' out even while her body still shuddered from the aftershocks. " _No man can inherit the powers of the mix maidens. That has been true for as long as humanity has kept records of their powers"_

" _ **That has been true for far longer than that, since Aura existed in the first place,"**_ Salem said coldly. _**"And yet the images are real, they have not been changed or altered. Either something new has been added, some new power is in the world that only looks like the Spring Maidens, or that old bitch somehow discovered how to pass on her powers to a man and indeed to someone who could fight with them in a way she never could. That is a very dangerous precedent."**_

Cinder simply replied in the affirmative to that, while her body slowly got over the telepathic shock. She raised a hand, unseen by Cinder Salem of course, to wipe at her nose, looking at the blood smeared on her hand. For some reason the quixotic thought _oh, my blood is still red that's good to know,_ came to her then. The utter strangeness of it made her smile faintly, though for the life of her she couldn't think why.

When she was certain that her mental voice would not tremble Cinder asked _"I presume you wish for me to follow up on this?"_

" _ **Yes,"**_ Salem said simply, not responding at all to how Cinder had worded that as if Salem was making a request of her rather than giving an order. _**The Queen's independence was part of the reason why she performs so well after all. There is no need to crush that confidence just yet.**_

" _ **I have long known where Spring kept herself."**_ Salem went on. _**"I had assumed she had wished to die out, to return her powers to the earth. Yet if this is indeed was someone using her power, we need to find more information. Go to Mountain Glen tomorrow. Transportation will be provided for you and your two aids. Remember to bring along my mark. You will be going deep into the Grimm lands, where there are high ranking Grimm who even I cannot command. They will still respect you if you carry my mark, but no more than that."**_

"Very well. If that is all, I have orders I need to give to Torchwick and others of my agents here in Vale."

" **Only another question my dear…"** Salem said silkily knowing that Cinder's mind was starting to give out on her after Salem had widened their connection to allow her to share the images of her pawns and finding it amusing to further torture the young woman. Not so much mentally through the connection itself, but to force Cinder to keep up the appearance that she was not in pain. _**"If this Azure Warden and the individual using the power of Spring turn out to be the same, which country would be best for you in which to arrange a mission that could lead to his death?"**_

" _That would probably be in Mistral."_ Cinder said calmly, even as the tremors came back. _"While I do have agents there, my penetration varies wildly from one valley to the next. We could sacrifice a few of them to Ozpin's follow-up interest, and they would not lead back to me."_

 _I will never show weakness, never!_ Cinder thought, biting her lip to let no hint of her pain come through her connection as she continued. Even her Aura wasn't a help with this sort of pain. _"Or perhaps Vacuo. People always disappear in the deserts after all. If you want me to come up with a more permanent plan, I'll have to have more information, as well as some kind of threat appraisal for this Azure Warden myself."_

"Very well, we are in no rush after all. I look forward to your report upon your trip tomorrow my dear." With that, Salem cut connection, the telepathic link snapping almost like a whip, a final crack of power impacting Cinder's mind, sending her reeling on the bed.

Once Salem's presence was gone from her mind Cinder sighed, falling back onto the bed, reaching out for a bottle of pills and some water she kept there for just this purpose. She noticed her hand trembling, but clenched her hand, grimacing as she forced her hand to still as she brought the glass of water to her lips before falling back once more, willing the pain away.

 **OOOOOOO**

Without the threat of imminent battle and having left behind the schools bullheads so that the Hunters in Waypoint could use them (bar the one which had crashed of course) the students and teachers took two large bullheads back to Beacon. These large commercial bullheads were not nearly as fast as the quick-response bullheads. So the trip, which had only taken them around an hour heading out, took them about four and a half hours coming back.

Because of this, by the time they landed the freshmen were complaining about being hungry, and it was time for dinner. However, the moment they landed, Professor Ozpin called their scrolls.

Exiting the bullhead Ruby looked down at her scroll and sighed disconsolately. "Darn it! Professor Ozpin wants to talk to us leaders about the battle." Coco, Ragnar, and the leaders of team GRNG and SAIL had also gotten messages. "Do you think it can wait until after dinner Professor?" she asked, looking over at the senior teacher.

Glynda looked down at her own scroll which was also showing a message and smiled slightly. "It does appear that it can Ms. Rose, so long as we are quick about it."

With a smile, Ruby turned was about to disappear into a Semblance-enhanced run towards the cafeteria when Weiss snagged her by the cloak. "Wait Ruby! Um, can I, can I talk to for a moment?"

Really looked at her partner quizzically Ruby nodded. "Of course you can! You don't have to ask permission for that."

"I meant privately you dolt!" Weiss said, looking around at the others before grabbing Ruby's arm and pulling her forward so that they were at least 10 feet ahead of the others...

"I wonder what that's about?" Yang muttered, looking over at the others.

"If it's any of our business I'm sure they'll tell us," Blake said beside her, before twitching as Yang cocked an eyebrow at her, not rising further to her friend's look.

Ranma and Benzaiten exchanged a glance than shrugged, uncaring, while Glynda turned back to address the other team leaders. "I would assume that Ozpin will want a written report about your parts in the bottle to go with the verbal. Perhaps you should be thinking along those lines as you eat." Glynda said, her tone making that more an order than a suggestion.

All of the team leaders snapped to, even Coco giving an approximation of standing at attention at Glynda's tone. Then as Glynda turned away Jaune slumped, holding his stomach which was still paining him from the flight despite Beni having had a second motion sickness pill on her. "Oh god, oh god oh god!" he muttered, holding his head in his hands. "I'm going to have to do a report!? I'm going to have to stand up and explain how the fight went?! In front of Professor Ozpin and maybe Goodwitch! Oh God I'm not ready for this! I'm not ready for this!"

While the other leaders chuckled at that and moved off to their teams, Pyrrha put her arm around Johnson's shoulders giving him the companionable hug. "There, there, you did **excellently** in leading us during the fight Jaune. Just think of it as entering enemy territory or something like that. Picture Professor Ozpin as a Grimm maybe?" Pyrrha said somewhat hesitantly. She had never needed to give someone else a pep talk, certainly not about public speaking and she had never had a problem with crowds.

"That's not helping! I mean fine okay yes I can fight, but there is a difference between that and the courage needed to stand up and front of other people and taaaalkk! Jaune moaned. "I've never even been part of a school play for goodness sake!"

Jaune continued to moan like this as Pyrrha tried to console, with Nora helping in her rather over-the-top fashion, promising to force Ren to make what she called the 'pancake of courage', whatever that was. Ren was possibly the most help, instructing Jaune in some simple breathing exercises to help him stay calm.

Ren Nora blurted out "Hey, I just remembered something! Aren't you supposed to imagine the entire crowd naked or something to get over it?"

JNPR paused, staring at nothing. They tried, they **really** tried to stop their brains going there but it was like trying to stop thinking about purple elephants if you knew what an elephant was which was frankly rather to the point. At Nora's words they had just imagined not only Professor Ozpin, but some of the other professors naked. Now in some cases, that wasn't exactly a hardship but they had just spent a flight with Professor Port regaling them all with some of his stories….

Jaune held up both of his hands over his mouth, his face going green as Nora and Pyrrha both turned away, gagging, all three going to their knees. Ren was the most controlled of them and simply groaned, shaking his head. "Nora why, just why!?"

"I don't know!" she wailed, between gagging, trying to fighter from throwing up. "OH my God I can't stop thinking about it ARGH!"

Ranma glanced over his shoulder from where he was walking with his sister, cocking an eyebrow. "What the heck is that is all about?"

She looked behind them to, and frowned thoughtfully. "Some kind of skit?"

While Nora was traumatizing her team at the front of the admittedly rather large group Ruby and Weiss continued to maintain a set distance between them and the rest of the crowd. "I have…" Weiss began, almost whispering the words so that only Ruby, or so she thought, could hear her. "I have to apologize for something."

Ruby blinked then had the thought that she was probably very thankful that her sister wasn't listening in on this conversation. S _he would've probably made some kind of snide joke about that._ But that wasn't Ruby's way and she simply threw an arm around Weiss, smiling at the slightly shorter girl. "Okay you're forgiven."

"You're supposed to wait until I say what I have to apologize for first you dolt," Weiss said, though her voice was now affectionate, and she made no move to pull out of the hug as she normally would. When Ruby made interrogative sort of noise, Weise went on. "I, I've been impressed by your fighting ability, and by your dedication to becoming a Huntress. But I still thought that maybe you weren't the best leader for our team."

Before Ruby could speak Weiss went on quickly. "But seeing the way the strategies you figured out work in a real battle, seeing how you lead us all, that made me convinced that I was wro, wrroo, wrong!" She stumbled over the last word, very, **very** unused to admitting that kind of thing but it had to be said, and Weiss would never let anyone say that a Schnee was backwards in coming forward.

"You're not the only one," Ruby said seriously, disengaging from the hug but still walking close to Weiss, smacking her shoulder against the other short girl. "I mean, I'm 15, you're all 17. And I know I'm you know childish about some things."

Weiss smirked, unable to stopper herself. "Like cookies?"

"Like cookie yes and strawberries," Ruby said haughtily, thrusting her nose up in the air like she had seen Weiss do a few times. Weiss gasped at the mockery but Ruby went on more seriously. "I've even thought about how you are way, way better at organizing things than me, how Yang is better at motivating people, and even how Blake is better at sneaking around and thinking long term."

"I'd argue that Yang isn't the best at motivating people except through fear," Weiss said snarkily and then poked Ruby in the side. "And don't sell yourself short on that one. Do you think that we would have followed you into that battle in the first place if we didn't trust you? Yes we would've probably come after you because you're our teammate, but actually following your orders during the fight? We wouldn't've done that if we didn't trust you. I doubted you enough for the both of us Ruby, don't doubt yourself like that."

Ruby smiled, then asked hesitantly. "So does that mean you will help me think about what to say to Professor Ozpin?"

Weiss seemed to think about it for a moment, her lips quirking up into a tender smile. "Well, I should let you stew in your own juices for sneaking off and stowing away like that, and I think I will. You'll have to answer to him alone for that one. But!" she said, holding up a finger, "We can talk over the dinner about the fight, about our tactics and our place in the overall battle. Just to get your thoughts all in order, alright?"

Ruby beamed. "Thanks Weiss!" With that she grabbed her partner's hand and turned back to the pathway. "Last one there is a rotten egg!" she shouted over her shoulder, then raced off using her Semblance and pulling Weiss with her easily.

Ranma had to stop himself from racing after her, the urge to take up any kind of challenge like that set deep into his psyche even if it wasn't so made do with martial arts thanks to his old man's teachings. Still, even he knew he couldn't move quite as fast as Ruby and her Semblance. _Not in a straight line anyway._ Ruby didn't go very far though before Weiss forced her to slow down and wait for the others.

The moment the group entered the cafeteria they were greeted by tumultuous applause. Every student was on their feet quickly, clapping and cheering. Even the professors who had stayed behind joined in, including Professor Ozpin at the front of the teacher's table. His eyes gleamed slightly behind his glasses, and there was a faint smile on his face as he nodded towards Glynda and the other teachers who entered with the students, before concentrating on the students and clapping for them.

As they moved towards the teacher's desk, Ranma noticed Ruby trying to hide behind Yang. Being in front of a camera apparently was a very different thing from being in front of so many actual people. But Yang was having none of that, and had moved to the side quickly, and along with her partner pushed Ruby forward, as Yang raised their linked arms in the air, shouting "Hell yeah baby! We're awesome!"

Coco laughed at that she and her team took the praise with just as much enjoyment as the younger students. Beside the sophomores Team GRNG and SAIL were somewhat sheepish and embarrassed by it all. Normally considered B-grade Hunters, even by themselves, they were not used to receiving such effusive praise for anything they did, even though they had been in the field numerous times and completed missions there. This was something entirely different, and they found themselves enjoying it.

The teacher soon sat down and began to talk as quietly as they could over the tumult of the students, many of whom had moved over to congratulate the students that are taking part in the battle of Waypoint, differences and grade levels forgotten. There was a general air of celebration around the place. Beating back a full-scale Grimm assault like at Waypoint without massive loss of life was immensely unusual. The last time it'd happened was estimated as being a few years before the World War.

Ozpin turned to Ranma as they sat down, smiling at the younger man. "I will have questions about your part in the battle later on Ranma, but for now, just so you know I was forced to admit that you are the Azure Warden or Semaphore fame. I have no doubt that you will I will be forced to meet with the council in the near future, and I would not be surprised if you began to get overtures from certain political parties to… certain gatherings."

"Screw that noise!" Ranma said with a laugh. "I'm not a politician, and I'm not going to be going to any high-end shindigs or anything like that. I don't care if they use my face, or whatever, but they sure as hell not going to use me."

"We shall see." Ozpin replied, though he smiled at the younger man's attitude. "There is quite a bit I can do to protect you and Benzaiten from your newfound fame. I have been doing so for Benzaiten since he became Glynda's apprentice." Benzaiten grunted that, looking over Glynda, who looked as if she had fit into a lemon.

"The number of parties we've had to go to since Benzaiten arrived, simply to hobnob and be **seen**!" Glynda said, making the word curse. "Yes they can be very irritating. And I'm afraid Ranma that refusing to go will make you some dangerous enemies."

Ranma shrugged unconcern at that, and then began to dig into his food, and Ozpin backed off, for now. "There is however someone I wish you to meet later on this evening after I am done to discussing the battle of Waypoint with the team leaders. I would also like you there for your input, and you, Benzaiten." He did not include Glynda in that of course, that would've been redundant.

Both young teachers nodded at that, with Benzaiten turning to Glynda and began to discuss this week's coming classes, and whether or not discussing the battle in class would be a good idea and if so how. Ranma on the other hand stayed silent, seemingly concentrating on his food but actually watching with a smile on his face as he watched the group of students who had fought at Waypoint being mobbed by their fellows.

Ruby in particular looked to be wilting, while her sister was pulling her further and further into a sort of defensive cordon the rest of the group made around the younger girl. When asked later, Ranma would learn they had done this because a few of the male students had actually tried talk Ruby up at the same time they were asking her questions about Waypoint.

The meal passed uneventfully except for two points, the first of which being a brief altercation between Yang and one of the boys who had flirted with Ruby. The boy, a junior, found himself being held up three feet in the air by a hand gripping his shirt, a glare on Yang's face that would've sent far braver men running.

The second occurred when Pyrrha refused to sign autographs, and was quickly surrounded by not only her own team, but team RWBY and CFVY when the crowd got pushy about that, showing pictures taken of Pyrrha from their time in Waypoint. Coco ended it by negligently dropping her purse onto the table in front of her, the thump of it audible over the chatter of talk as it shifted into its Gatling Gun form.

"Whoops!" she said. "Sorry, it was in my way for a moment." She grinned evilly under her sunglasses, still present even in here, as she glared around at them all, and the crowd quickly began to disperse, except for a few hard-core students here and there still asking questions about the actual battle.

About an hour later people begin to leave the cafeteria at last. Ozpin now used his scroll to once more contact the team leaders and remind them to head out to his office, walking out the door moments later.

Weiss and Ruby looked at the younger girl's scroll, then at one another. "You're ready for this!" Weiss said. "We've gone over everything, you can do it."

"I can do it, right…" Ruby said, shaking in her hood. "I just don't want to!"

They both however looked up as Jaune slapped his face with both hands and stood up abruptly. "All right, let's get this over with!"

"That's the spirit!" Pyrrha said with a laugh, standing up with the rest of her team. "We'll walk you to the tower at least."

With that the rest freshman nodded and did the same. Team GRNG and deemed SAIL didn't, nor did team CFVY or RUST, being more experienced.

Soon enough the team leaders stood in front of Ozpin's desk. He smiled at them faintly as he sipped his coffee before setting it down. "First of all, let me say at the start that I am proud of how all of your teams performed in the defense of Waypoint. Judging from Glynda's report and the news on the battle you all performed as well as any student here at Beacon could be called upon to do regardless of grade level."

He smiled as they all stood a little straighter, even the more experience leaders before going on. "You young Ms. Rose, and Ms. Valkyrie will still be punished for stowing away as you did. However, none of your team members will be penalized for going after you. We here at Beacon try to instill a sense of camaraderie in all of the teams that go through our school, and their following you into this battle is precisely the type of action that we approve of."

Ruby breathed a hidden sigh of relief at that. While she wasn't looking forward to going without cookies, Yang going without hair care products like Ranma had suggested as punishment was so scary she would scare any demon back to hell.

"Um, sir," Jaune said hesitantly. "C, can I ask what punishments you're thinking of?"

"We'll talk about that after we talk about the actual battle. And since you spoke up Mister Ark, perhaps you should be the one to start us off." Ozpin said, sipping his coffee and gesturing with his free hand.

Jaune winced at that, but Ruby grabbed his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly. He smiled down at her, then straightened his shoulders and began.

From there Ranma watched with Glynda and Benzaiten as well as several other teachers as the students each gave their reports. Ozpin asked questions here and there, mostly about their reasoning behind various orders they gave their teams, questioning Ruby closely on how she had come up with the various partner and team-based attacks RWBY used, the logistics aspect that Jaune had been able to keep in his head, and other things of that nature.

Ranma had to admit that Ozpin certainly knew his stuff. He very clearly made the students think through their instinctual responses to various parts of the battle so they could perform better in the future and know where they needed to improve. This went on for several hours, and it was pushing nine thirty at night by the time Ozpin was satisfied and leaned back finally setting his ever present mug down on his desk.

 _I wonder if he knows the ki space technique and used it on that mug his,_ Ranma thought. _Either that, or he was just pretending to sip that times._

"Again, you all performed incredibly well," Ozpin said smiling at his students. "George, Samantha, this goes double for you. I know your aspirations coming out of Beacon and I know that you both agree with the so-called class B label that has been given you. Yet perhaps if you put more effort into your combat classes, you will find further doors open to you after your time here is done, and perhaps your goals themselves will have changed as well."

The two students looked at one another then back to Ozpin. "We'll think about it Sir," Samantha said politely for them both. She personally wanted to go into police work and had been taking law and criminal justice classes as well as several others along with combat courses. Her team was similarly set on similar goals. GRNG on the other hand had initially been more diverse in the goals they wanted to reach, and she had to wonder how George and his friends would handle this.

"I urge you all to compare notes later on at some point. There is always something to learn after all, and new perspectives can help you in that. For now however the two of you are dismissed." The two teens nodded, and left without another word.

Ozpin turned his attention to the team leaders remaining. "Coco, Ragnar. I know that you both are close to Brutus and Charlotte, have been since you arrived here in point of fact."

"Not quite true there Boss," Coco said with a laugh. "We weren't close with Charlotte until she and her team schooled mine in team exercises. Still, why are you mentioning them?"

"I am mentioning them to you because soon their positions in my Strategy, Logistics and Tactics course will be open. I have unfortunately been pressured into allowing team CRSH and team BANE to graduate early." Ozpin said, standing up and moving over to a coffee machine in one corner and pouring himself a new cup.

This seemed to go on for a while as his back was turned, and Ranma wondered if his earlier guess about that cop holding a ki space of some kind was accurate. Eventually however he turned back, looking at the teens. "Both of those teams are ready to become Hunters. They have an idea of the workload their experience is up to a level I could wish most Hunter teams could reach before really being out on their own, as is their skill and teamwork. I had little problem with allowing them to graduate now, but the method of it, and the desire to push it ahead were not made for the most altruistic of motives. This does however present the two of you with the opportunity to join my class if you wish to."

Both sophomores looked at one another then nodded. "Very well. Again, you thank you for your work, and I hope to see you tomorrow in class." Ozpin said, smiling at them. "For now you are dismissed. After all, two of you aren't up for punishment."

Coco and Ragnar nodded to the teachers gathered to one side, and then exited the room, followed by most of the other teachers. Coco winked at both Jaune and Ruby as they left, ruffling the younger girl's hair, affectionately while Ragnar simply nodded to them stoically before exiting.

Soon only Ranma, Glynda and Benzaiten remained. Now without the other four students around them, both Ruby and Jaune felt a little more nervous especially given the topic that was about to be discussed. As the others left Ms. Valkyrie was shown in by Port and she moved to take position with Ruby and Jaune.

"Jaune, as team leader you need to be here for her punishment as well, however, before we get to that, I would like to congratulate you personally about how you lead during this action." Ozpin began, smiling at the young boy. "Of all of the team leaders, only you and Brutus remained aware of the logistics aspect of the battle. Even Ragnar forgot about it once he called his team's needs in, an assumption that could've gotten all of you killed it eventually. Well done. I look forward to a few years down the line when you join my class."

Jaune flushed in pleasure at the praise and at Ozpin's wave stepped back. This left Ruby and Nora alone remain front and center in front of Ozpin's desk.

"Now, I understand that the two of you have already heard one suggestion for what punishment should be levied against you. And like the one who made that suggestion," Ozpin said, his eyes flicking over to Ranma for a moment then back. "I too am of the opinion that the punishment should fit the perpetrator. However, unlike Ranma, I can see the other side of things of cutting one off from a favorite food."

"Oh yes," Glynda muttered, audible to all those who now remained in the room. "Far be it from anyone to even think of depriving you of your coffee."

The two youngsters grinned at that, while Ozpin set his coffee cup down gently. "I would fight to the death to keep my coffee and I am proud of it Glynda. So I will give the two of you a choice." he said turning his attention back to the students, who were trying to fight back giggles at the glare Glynda was giving the man, not at all helped by the fact that Benzaiten was patting her shoulder commiseratingly. "The decision will be to either take Ranma's punishment, or mine."

"Heck yes! No way will anyone ever deprive me of my pancakes! Not without paying for it in blood!" Nora shouted. She then glared at the devil-worshipper bagel lover for the suggestion, fingering her side where her hammer would've normally been.

Ruby was about to shout yes at that, but the lights hidden in the gears of the clock tower caught Ozpin's glasses for a moment, giving him the look of a comic book villain, and she paused. "…What would your punishment be sir?" Ruby asked speaking for them both.

"You will clean and polish both your own weapons, and those of all of the other people involved in the battle of Waypoint," Ozpin replied succinctly. "You will do so tomorrow after class, and work on it until the job is done. And you will do so listening to this." Ozpin touched a button on his desk, and the song 'This is the song that doesn't end, it goes on and on my friend' began to belt out from a few of the nearby speakers.

Both freshmen looked at each other in horror as Ranma stared at Ozpin in renewed respect. "You sir, a pure evil."

"Psychological trauma will make the punished think deeper about breaking further rules, not just the one they broke but in general." Ozpin retorted. "That is not evil, that is simply good professorship."

"Evil," said Benzaiten, Glynda and Ranma as one, staring to where Ruby and Nora were now huddling close to one another before they pushed past Jaune, pushing him to the fore for a moment as they had a heated discussion. "I can't do it alone!" was shouted by Ruby more than once, which was responded to by "but pancakes!" from Nora.

Ruby eventually stuck her head out from behind Jaune, idly noting how tall and wide he was, then blushed as one of his hands came down on her head ruffling her hair. "I, um, Sir," she said, trying hard not to concentrate on the physical sensation she was feeling at the moment. "How long again would we be deprived of cookies and pancakes?"

"I believe it was a week," Ranma noted, watching the tableau in amusement now.

Both girls winced and went back to furiously whispering, before finally popping up to either side of Jaune and moving forward again. "Will we be in public if we choose your punishment?" Ruby asked, manifest reluctance in her voice. That song would probably drive her crazy, although she did love cleaning weapons. _And this would a chance to get my hands on all of my friend's weapons too without it being weird._

"No, we can save you from that from the humiliation at least." Ozpin said. "It will occur in a single private room in the armory. But, you will be monitored and smuggling earmuffs or anything else will not be allowed. If you attempt to do so, the punishment will be extended to include the maintenance and cleaning of the weapons of all the freshman class"

The two girls shuddered, looked at one another as a contest of will occurred. "We'll take your punishments sir," Ruby said in a defeated tone of voice, looking away. Nora nodded too. Unlike Ruby, the whole cleaning other people's weapons thing didn't really do anything for her, so this punishment was worse for her in a way. However, nothing could be as horrible as going without pancakes.

Ranma blinked, having been certain the two of them would go for his punishment over Ozpins, but said nothing as Ozpin dismissed the three freshman.

When they were gone, Ozpin turned to Ranma. "And that just leaves you Ranma."

"Me, what about me?" Ranma asked, one eyebrow twitching upwards in question.

"Two things really. One, there is still someone I would like you to introduce you to and two, I would like to ask you some questions about your Semblance. I understand from Glynda's report you're your Semblance, and your destruction of the Dryder was the turning point of the battle?"

"I think so," Ranma said with a nod, making no effort to explain beyond that. "But without Benzaiten and Glynda destroying the Arachnoid horde Waypoint would still have fallen and everyone in it would've died," He said bluntly, smacking his shoulder against Benzaiten's who had sat next to down to them.

"Indeed, this report covered that as well. Yet it did not cover what exactly your Semblance was. I had thought that your Semblance simply gave you further control over your aura. Yet judging by Glynda's report, which is in fact not the case. Would you mind explaining your Semblance to us?"

As Ranma's expression went wooden, Ozpin continued smoothly. "Of course you don't have to, but I would take it as a sign of trust between us." He chuckled. "Although at this point I would have liked to think that I have turned around your bad first impression of me."

Glynda's lips twitched as Ranma snorted a laugh, both of them remembering how Ranma had accused Ozpin of perving on Ruby. "I don't know about that Oz, you still have way too many darn cameras around for my liking. Still…" Ranma paused, looking at Ozpin through somewhat narrowed eyes, then shrugged his shoulders. _Trust goes both ways, let's see where this goes._ "Got a question in turn then, why'd you stay behind rather than come with us to Waypoint?"

Taking a deep sip from his coffee mug Ozpin bought time to think before replying but when he did, he was about as open as he could be to anyone not truly in the Circle. "I was concerned by what I saw as the odd timing of the attack on Waypoint, and feared it was but a diversion. I also hoped, that if it was not a prelude to an attack here, to at least dangle bait enough to keep whoever's attention might be behind it locked on Beacon."

Ranma's eyes narrowed at that as he worked it through it while Glynda scowled and Beni looked confused, glancing between her mentor and the headmaster. "So did ya get a bite then?"

"Alas, no, at least not one I can reel in immediately." Ozpin replied, twitching his coffee mug in his equivalent of a shrug.

Breathing in deeply Ranma let his mind work through all the suppositions of what Ozpin had just told him, if in an amazingly oblique manner. It didn't tell Ranma a lot, but then again, Ranma hadn't exactly been open about his Semblance or past up to this point. Trust, right. "Huh. Well, my Semblance is… interesting. I am able to use my own Aura to connect to the aura of the environment around me. It ups my Aura and how much of it I can use immensely, and also can let me, sort of imbue other people with a feeling of confidence, so long as I'm already feeling it anyway. That comes with a sort of second wind, or at least the feeling of one."

"Fascinating." Ozpin said, staring at Ranma his face showing open shock for a moment, his logic and his knowledge warring. Logically, Ozpin knew there were things he does not know, and the odds of two people having the same exact Semblance, especially in this manner were very low. So the idea that Spring, standoffish, cool and untrusting Spring, could have found a way to transfer her powers was not logically impossible.

However that warred with his knowledge. For one thing, the mechanical means of transferring Aura/semblance from one person to another was new, barely a half a year old, and an Atlas military secret. But even setting aside the fact Spring could never had developed equivalent technology, even then there was another issue: Ranma was a man, there was no doubt about that, and never, never as far back as they were known to have existed, had a Maiden's power been used by a man. Not since the original Wizard imbued them with their powers had a man been able to call upon the power of the seasons.

And yet, that is precisely what Ranma had just explained, bar his ability to use the energy gifted to him by the environment in an offensive manner. The initial attack Glynda had reported, a beam of pure Aura that burned the Grimm away like nothing Glynda had ever seen, was something altogether new.

Yet that wasn't the aspect that most interested Ozpin. "Tell me, we have seen you several times healing from dangerous wounds, does your Semblance tie into that? A locked form of it perhaps, since I was told you had to use an activation mantra before you used the powers you just mentioned."

"Mm, sort of, but not really. I learned from a young age to use my Aura as you all put it, my… teacher… used a different term, from an early age to heal myself. After a while it became automatic, then years later after I built up my aura reserves I began to be able to use my aura consciously, to heal and to do other things. My Semblance can help in a way by giving me more power to work with, but that's it." Ranma replied honestly.

"Fascinating. And I imagine your teacher used the terms ki or chi, they were used in ancient times to describe Aura in various places in Vacuo and Vale before the countries of that name came into being." Ozpin said, pursing his lips as he ruminated before asking the next question in as delicate a manner as possible, making no mention of the fact he had overheard Ranma and Beni use those terms in a private discussion. "And does this ability to heal yourself segue into healing others?"

Ranma winced, understanding just by how Ozpin was asking that question in such an offhand manner like that it was actually very important. "Um, no, sorry. I can heal wounds I can see, sure, but I can't do anything about internal injuries or disease or even refill someone's Aura reserves. I can only make them feel as if that last has happened, not really do it."

"Ahh…" Ozpin said simply, then spent a moment sipping at his coffee once more to buy time as he thought about how to push Ranma for more information without giving any back. It was an unusual situation for the headmaster of Beacon to find himself in, when someone else wasn't willing to trust him rather than the other way around, and it was somewhat vexing, yet stimulating at the same time.

He smiled behind his cup however as the door to his office pinged. "Excellent timing, here is the man I would like you to meet."

As Ranma, Beni and Glynda turned, they saw two people enter the office. One was a tall man, almost as tall as Yatsuhashi though not as broad, walked in first. He wore a white uniform of some kind with a long coat and black highlights. His black hair which had grey highlights in turn, the hair cut into a buzz cut and his stance that of a soldier.

Behind him came a woman whose features were so like Weiss Schnee they had to be related, though in terms of her body she looked more like Glynda or Yang than Weiss. She had blue hair done up in a tight bun in the back with a loose wave of it falling down one side of her face. She too walked like a soldier, but wore a uniform style more like a high class dress than anything else.

"Heh, you have got to be related to Weiss with that face. Cousin or sister?" Ranma asked, ignoring the man and speaking up before Ozpin could make introductions. "Here to check up on her after her part in the battle at Waypoint."

"Not precisely, though you are correct I am Weiss' sister professor." Winter replied, looking between the man she had followed and Ozpin before frowning at Ranma for not following the rules of decorum and allow someone else to make introductions first.

Ozpin smiled and did so. "Ranma Saotome, meet Specialist Winter Schnee, and her commanding Officer General James Ironwood."

Smiling thinly James moved forward to shake Ranma's hand, though he really would have preferred to say high to Glynda first. He had been called down to the CCT that afternoon as Glynda and the students from Waypoint arrived, and had been involved in a meeting with several individuals back in Atlas for most of the afternoon and evening so hadn't been able to talk to her before this.

Before he could say anything however Ranma snorted, shaking his head as one hand came up to clamp over his mouth. "Heheheh…." He laughed, or more accurately chortled perhaps.

"Is something funny?" James asked, his eyes narrowing dangerously as Winter stiffened. Glynda and Ozpin both cocked their heads quizzically, wondering what Ranma was laughing at, while Beni groaned and took several steps backwards, just as in the dark as the two of them but knowing something bad was about to happen.

"Oh, no, nothing, nothing at all. Ironwoody…" Ranma said only to break out in another laugh. "Oh god, Iron, wood, hehehehehehe, that's just wrong! Or, or is it an advertisement or something?"

For a moment the rest of the people in the room were silent, stunned into immobility as they realized what Ranma was laughing at. Ozpin had frozen, his mug halfway to his mouth, and now stared, his eyes wide as he took in the rapidly reddening face of his old friend. Beni simply put her head in her hands, saying nothing but still taking three blind steps backwards to get out of range. Winter's eyes flashed and her face became almost as red as Beni's hair for a moment.

And Glynda, studious, officious, Glynda, voted the teacher most likely to have had her funny bone removed through surgery by the students, snorted. As Ozpin's eyes flicked to her, Glynda undoubtedly snorted, her lips twitching as she fought to keep from laughing.

"…Ohohoho," James said, his face utterly blank even as his mouth opened into a teeth baring smile. "I've never heard that one before."

Before Ozpin could speak up to try and stop this train wreck, but before he could James had thrown a punch which Ranma dodged. The force of the punch carved through the wall of Ozpin's office. Yet at the same time James flinched backwards, as Ranma's foot nearly came up impacting his face. He had dodged at the last second, but his eyes had widened noticeably in shock. _Fast!_

Scowling Winter brought out her weapon, a rapier much like that used by her sister. She was about to launch herself at Ranma, but Benzaiten took her arm gently, but inexorably. When Winter glared at her, wondering internally how the redhead had crossed the space between them, Benzaiten simply sighed, shaking her head forlornly. "Don't, you'll just add to the chaos."

Before Ozpin or Glynda could to anything, Ranma had rolled out of the opening that James had a created shouting back at James. "Oh come on Ironwoody, why do you have to be so **stiff** all the time!" Before he dropped out of sight.

James growled and went after him, shouting "I will get you! And your little pigtail too!"

"How did this just happen?" Ozpin said, setting his coffee mug down as he moved over to stare at the two below the clock tower now exchanging blows as Ranma continued to needle James. In return James had been reduced to snarls as he attacked Ranma in a fury. Ranma on the other hand looked to be treating the whole thing like a game.

"I did warn you when you invited Ranma as a teacher, he is chaos incarnate," Benzaiten said.

Winter wrenched her arm free from the other woman glaring at her. "Why did you stop me!? Between the two of us the General and I could have easily put down that that reprobate!"

"Actually I doubt you could," Glynda said, holding back her snickers with difficulty. She had made no move to try and mitigate the confrontation, indeed it was all she could do to not collapse into giggles, and the last thing Glynda wanted to do was giggle in public, especially where James or Ozpin could hear it. _How the hell did no one else ever make that connection?! Especially with all the dick measuring contests he and Ozpin had as students?_

Coughing, Glynda regained control of herself enough to speak, while thinking about sending Ranma a present of some sort in the future for this. "R, cough, excuse me, ahem. Ranma's ability to create chaos actually seems to multiply when he is faced with multiple opponents. Besides, your power is based upon glyphs correct?"

"That is correct yes," Winter said, calming down slightly. While she couldn't say she was close to Glynda Goodwitch or even knew her that well, she respected the other woman's abilities and attitude.

"In that case, he knows about them, he has after all been teaching your younger sister since school began. He would simply turn them against you, or simply move so that they hit James." Benzaiten said shaking her head. "That is one of his, or rather **our** , specialties actually. Though he seems to be much better at manipulating the chaos of the battle than I am, alas."

"And besides, this way the two of them will hopefully get it out of their system." Glynda said.

"True enough I suppose." Ozpin murmured, having retrieved his mug and returned to the new hole in his office. They were all silent for a minute, then Ozpin let his mug fall away from his lips for a moment cocking an eyebrow at the others. "So, anyone care to wager on the outcome?"

While Glynda rolled her eyes, Winter began to berate the headmaster in no uncertain terms, reminding Beni strongly of her younger sister. However her tone was very dry as she cut into Winter's harangue. "That depends Ozpin I think if you let this go on too long the true loser will be your campus."

Outside, Ranma and James were going at it hammer and tongs. James put a lot of power behind each punch and kick, every one of them infused with so much aura that he would have really hurt even given Ranma's natural toughness. If he had been able to land a punch in the first place anyway, but he couldn't. Ranma was too fast, and his ability to manipulate the momentum behind his opponent's blows in order to keep himself in the air seemed to throw James off.

In return, Ranma wasn't even trying to hit James. He was too busy laughing, throwing out puns based on James last name.

However as five minutes elapsed the other four finally got tired of watching. Or rather, Beni, Ozpin and Glynda did, Winter was still shaking with rage at Ranma's impudence. "Glynda, would you mind?" Ozpin asked sipping at his coffee still.

"Gladly," Glynda replied waving her riding crop down towards the combatants. Both of them found themselves lifted up and hurled backwards from one another, but quickly flashed their auras, breaking her hold on them.

Even so, it had broken the conflict for a moment, and James had come out of his berserker rage at the all-too familiar touch of Glynda's Semblance. For his Ranma looked up at Glynda who glared down at him. "Serious time now Ranma," she said sternly wondering how the heck Ranma had turned out like this with a sister like Benzaiten, and why she sometimes felt like an exasperated older sibling around him. "You can have fun with the General later."

"Ouch," James muttered, shaking his head before glaring at Ranma. "I just want one punch that's all. Is that too much to ask?" he said plaintively looking up at Glynda.

"So long as I can land one of my own sure Ironwoody," Ranma said with a laugh.

James grinned evilly, and nodded. "I'll inform the hospital then," Glynda said coolly. "You have three seconds to bring this male territorial competition or whatever it is to an end before I do it for you. One, two…"

Before Glynda could hit three, the two combatants had crossed the intervening distance and thrown a punch at one another. There was the sound of a machine gun going off was heard as Ranma's punch landed on James's chain, and at the same time Ranma's head disappeared in a blast of yellow light.

Ranma staggered back, shaking his head and wincing. Even his body's toughness had been challenged there by that one punch of his opponent. _Huh, and was that the clang of metal I heard? Interesting._

Across from him James thought his jaw might've broken there for a moment and his teeth had been severely rattled despite his Aura. "That wasn't one freaking punch!" He said glaring at the other man.

"You enhanced your punch with aura, I just multiplied mine," Ranma said, shaking his head to clear it. "Damn good punch too."

The two of them looked at one another then smirked, as one and looked up to the tower. "Were done now I think," James said amiably.

Glynda suddenly shuddered thinking _. Oh God, don't let them bond, please don't let them bond!_ While outside the realm of possibility given their general attitudes, what she had just seen made her shudder.

"As we're waiting for them to come up, could you please fix my wall Glynda?" Ozpin said, moving over to refill his mug of coffee. And if he added a little something extra while Glynda's back was turned, Benzaiten and Winter didn't seem to notice.

By the time the two of them arrived Glynda had finished repairing the damage done to Ozpin's office. "Now that we have gotten the unpleasantness out of the way, are we ready to get down to business?" the headmaster asked dryly, once more sipping from his cup.

To one side Glynda was still smirking behind one hand, despite having cleaned up after James' outburst. The reason being she knew precisely how to puncture Ironwood's ego now. Despite the amount of chaos he had just caused, she found herself feeling rather thankful towards Ranma for that. Going to have to think of something nice to give him for his birthday for that.

"Yeah we're good I think," Ranma said looking over at James who nodded, and moved over to stand by Winter.

Winter however was still glaring daggers at Ranma, but he ignored that beyond winking at her then he looked over at Ozpin. "So was there a reason you wanted to introduce me to the good general here and his loyal sidekick, Mighty Blue?"

Glynda snickered, but quickly covered it with a cough while Benzaiten smirked and Winter's glare intensified. If her ice powers were not glyph but rather vision based, Ranma would've been a popsicle by now. Or perhaps seared to ash, one of the two.

Ozpin simply chuckled into his coffee, still internally debating what to tell Ranma. He was after all a practical unknown, even if Benzaiten vouched for his ability and his character to a certain extent. "I actually just wanted to introduce you to James," he said at last, deciding to hold off on asking Ranma outright if he knew this spring maiden. "He also had an offer he wished to give you, but I believe that has gone by the wayside."

Snorting James nodded. "I was going to offer you an officer's commission in the Atlas Army, but given your attitude, I don't see that happening. Although I still have to congratulate you with how you performed in the battle of Waypoint. You saw the enemy's weakness, having only one S-class Grimm that could force the horde to obey, targeted the weakness and took it out."

Ranma nodded back in acknowledgement of James' words, then allowed a smirk to cross his face. "Yeah, I'm not big on joining anything, let alone an army." _Especially one like Atlas's,_ he thought, keeping his thoughts to himself for now. Ranma had read a lot about the four city-states of Remnant, and hadn't liked a lot that he had heard about Atlas.

Not so much their military bent, that made sense in Ranma's eyes even if he didn't like the rigid structure, but the way Faunus were treated, and how massively arrogant and condescending Atlas seemed in its relations with other nations. Arrogant in a person was fine, he could deal with that considering Ranma knew he had an ego himself. Arrogance in a country coupled with how Faunus were treated, no, that was something he didn't like.

Ozpin smiled. "And now that James has had his opportunity to poach one of my teachers, you may go Ranma, and you Benzaiten. But before you do," he went on as the two marital artists turned toward the door, "I have a quick couple of questions for you before you go. First, do you believe in fairytales?"

"That depends on the kind of fairytale you're talking about," Ranma said turning back and looking at Ozpin, his head cocked to one side quizzically, but giving nothing else away.

"Really, explain please," Ozpin said, intrigued and wondering even more now.

"Well, there's the version that's told ta kids nowadays, and then there's the tales they're based on. The ancient fairytales were never all about goodness and light triumphing over evil. Most of them, when you got right down to it, were about blood. Blood, sacrifice, and bad things happening, sometimes to people who deserve it, sometimes not."

Ranma held Ozpin's eyes, wondering where the older man was going with this, and if he was going to ask further questions about Ranma's abilities. He actually wasn't certain how he would answer if the older man did. Ranma still didn't quite trust Ozpin after all. _Hmm, let's see how he responds to this one._ "By the way why did Ruby's silver eyes interest you so much?"

"They are a rather odd color, really," Ozpin said, clamming up immediately. "That is all. Except, Ranma another quick question if I may, do you play chess?"

Ranma's eyes narrowed, not having been impressed by Ozpin's clamming up as he did. He had no idea why Ozpin was interested in Ruby, but he still didn't like it. To take his mind off that Ranma looked at the chess set on Ozpin's desk, shaking his head. "Y'know a lot of people talk about chess and think it's an excellent strategy game, but unless it's blind chess I don't see the point.

"Blind chess? I see," Ozpin said blinking behind his glasses as he grasped what Ranma meant. James too nodded, understanding the point while Winter and Glynda both looked confused.

"Beyond that," Ranma went on, "all the pieces move in set formations, they can't deviate, they can't act on their own or change tactics. So I think that chess as the same relation to real war as their relationship between shit and roses." As winter and Glynda growled at his cursing Ranma nodded at Ozpin waved at the others and walked out.

Ozpin sipped at his coffee for a moment before looking down at the chess set. "Harsh."

After dismissing Benzaiten Glynda looked at the headmaster quizzically. "You didn't ask him, why?"

"He doesn't trust me enough, and I am uncertain if I would trust his answers," Ozpin said simply. "We're still feeling the one another out my dear. I predict however there will come a time when we do trust another enough to share secrets." _I just hope it doesn't take too long, And that Ranma is willing to if not accept the bridle, then at least a bit of direction._

"He's arrogant!" Winter said scoffing angrily. "Arrogant and very irritating!"

"Yet also selfless, courageous, empathic, intelligent," Glynda said, counting on her fingers, then sighing. "Chaotic, arrogant yes, rather mouthy, antiauthoritarian despite being a teacher… I suppose the jury is still out shall we say upon whether or not Ranma's good points outweigh his bad. Ranma is however an extremely good teacher at least in his chosen field. I would never try to put him in a classroom which would force him to open a textbook, or give out written tests. And it remains to be seen how good at the actual paperwork in general he is, but we will see."

Ozpin rolled his eyes. "We were speaking of Ranma in a more general sense than just his usefulness here as a teacher, my dear."

"I know, and I don't care." Glynda said. "I think that if you asked Benzaiten, she would give me the same answer I am. Ranma would rather go his own way, then follow **anyone's** orders. He is willing to go along to get along to a certain degree, but if you try to treat him like a soldier James, he'll not only ignore you, he'll fight right back as you saw. And Ozpin, I truly doubt he'll react well to any attempt to manipulate him. Ask, rather than attempt to subtly influence him.

While Ozpin fell silent, not replying, James shrugged. "It was just a thought, and I knew the moment he made that… joke… at my expense that I would prefer him to not actually be among one of my soldiers anyway." James' entire body twitched as Glynda again coughed into her hand to hide a chuckle, but he resolutely ignored that looking at Ozpin. "He has a strong and proactive, something I wish I could say for others."

"What would you have me do James?" Ozpin said. "We have **no known** target. I admittedly tried to make it so that Beacon is seen as one by our opponents whoever they may be, to force our opponents to come here and assail us in a place of strength. However, whether or not that will succeed I do not know."

"Yes, but Ranma might also have painted a target on his back couldn't he?" James asked shrewdly, making no mention of why that could be. He too had seen Glynda's report and reached a conclusion similar to Ozpin, though strangely enough he was having less trouble accepting it. "There has to be some way we could use him as a stalking horse."

"Indeed, but it remains to be seen who will act upon that. We will see." Ozpin sighed, sipping at his coffee again before setting his mug down to look at James seriously. "For now, how long will it take you to set up the technology needed to transfer Amber's Aura?"

Glynda grimaced. "If that's all I'll take my leave now," she said bluntly. "You know I don't agree with this idea at all Ozpin."

"I know my dear, but it is necessary."

"So you say. I'll trust your opinion and plans Ozpin, as you've never led us wrong before. But that doesn't mean I want to sit around and talk about it either." With that she left, sharing a glance with Winter, who almost glared at the woman as if she thought that Glynda was being disrespectful somehow. Glynda in turn rolled her eyes at the younger woman, and continued walking out the door.

"Same old Glynda," James said watching her go with a smile.

"Saints forfend that she ever changes," Ozpin said with a faint smile. "Then I'd have to do more of the paperwork around here." The two men shared a laugh, but then got down to more serious business quickly.

 **OOOOOOO**

Yang blinked then looked around with a wide smile on her face. "Someone is using puns somewhere, some good ones too!"

"Oh God, save whoever is in the vicinity of the punner" Weiss looking up from where she had been combing her hair. She looked over at Blake quizzically. The black-haired girl had seemed rather tense since they got back to their dorm. "Are you worried about how Ruby will be punished? I don't think you should be, and even if she is punished, she did sneak off after all."

"I'd be worried too if they decide to follow through with Ranma's idea of punishing us too," Yang muttered. "You do not want to see me without any hair care products."

Weiss paused, thinking of her sister without any beauty products, remembering a specific instant in particular. Winter had come home from roughing it during boot camp one time. Apparently, being a Schnee had not been enough to get her out of certain things, and the girl had snarled at anyone coming close to her throughout that day, looking and acting more like a harridan than a Schnee. "I can imagine," she said faintly then looked up grateful for the distraction from her memories as the door their dorm room opened.

Ruby stood there, looking despondent.

"Hey Rubes," Yang said, moving over and putting an arm around her sister. "Don't worry about whatever punishment you got, I'll still sneak you some cookies don't worry."

"It's not that." Ruby moaned, leaning against her sister's shoulder and letting the older girl guide her further into the room, the door closing behind her. "They gave us a choice. I was going to go for the no cookies for a week, I think I could've done that, but Nora didn't think she could survive without pancakes."

The girls all looked at one another, remembering how often Nora had pancakes, and how she often acted. "Um, she might be right about that," Blake muttered. "Didn't Ren once say something about depriving Nora of pancakes leading to some kind of disaster?"

"I guess. Anyway, we decided to go with Ozpin's idea of punishment, and well, at least this way I get to play with everyone's weapons."

"What do you mean by that?" Weiss growled, grabbing up Myrtenaster protectively.

"Ozpin's orders I'm afraid," Ruby said, smirking and somewhat enjoying both Weiss and Blake's looks of annoyance. "I'm to clean, repair, and perform maintenance on every weapon that was used by all of the students that took part in the battle of Waypoint."

"I'm waiting for the but, little sister," Yang said pushing Ruby towards one of the bunkbed. Ruby sat down by Weiss as Yang moved over to join Blake on her bunk. "After all that's not exactly a punishment for you."

"It wouldn't be but we have to do it while listening to a song. The one that goes 'this is the song that doesn't end…'" Ruby said groaning.

All three girls stared at her in horror. "Oh my God, Ozpin is a sadist!" Weiss said. "I have half a mind to march directly to that clock tower and demand that he give you a lesser punishment. There are some things that are just beyond the pale!" Weiss said actually standing before Ruby grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Don't, if you complain they might come up with a worse punishment," Ruby said. "Besides, at least this way we don't see Nora go on a rampage or anything." Then she smiled and hugged Weiss, ignoring the shorter girl's squawk. "But thanks for caring Weiss!"

"Well," Yang said with a grin, "I think that you at least could say that the Ice-Weiss has warmed up to you little sister." As all three of her listeners groaned at that, Yang went on more seriously. "However, Blake here has something she wants to say to us."

Blake shot her partner a look, half in thanks, half irritated that she was being put on the spot like that before turning to the height challenged pair. "I, I do have something to, to tell you or to show you. I've been keeping a secret. I didn't, that is I didn't mean to keep secrets just to keep them, there's nothing malicious about it. I wanted, I wanted to be known for who I am not what I am…"

"Why don't you just tell us then," Ruby said, and Yang noticed she had not yet let go of Weiss. Weiss also didn't seem in any great rush to make her, something that Yang noticed, and smiled at internally. _Another has fallen to the cuddle monster!_

However since it was time to be serious she looked at Blake, putting her arms around the girl's shoulder. "I found out about it a while ago," she said, addressing Ruby and Weiss "and it hasn't changed how I treat my purrfect partner here."

"It did the moment you told me you knew about it!" Blake muttered, rolling her eyes but smiling all the same, which went over their diminutive team member's heads. "I guess there's no easy way to say this," Blake said, reaching up to her bowtie and pulling it off. "I'm a Faunus."

For a moment the other two girls stared then Ruby squealed. "Oh my God they're so cute! Can I pet them!?" she asked, zooming between the two feet actually using her Semblance to move that little bit of space just that little bit quicker.

"As long as you go with the fur and not against, and there's a 10 second rule Ruby," Blake said, though she was now smiling wider at the younger girl's reaction. "It, it doesn't bother you that I kept it a secret?"

"Nope," Ruby said, as she began to pet the cat ears, which twitched under her hand. _Oh that so cool!_ "Why would it? It's just part of you, and I can understand why you would like to keep it a secret for a while, though I don't think here at Beacon it's a big issue. I've personally never understood why Faunus are treated like they are anyway."

"Never change Ruby," Yang and Blake said together, then looked at one another and laughed, before looking up Ruby to Weiss. "Weiss?" Blake asked hesitantly. "Does this change things between us?"

"…I would have preferred you to be upfront about this I suppose," Weiss said, inhaling deeply then she looked at Blake sternly. "Out with it. There is more to this than just your being a Faunus. Tell us the whole thing now please."

Blake nodded and gently pushed Ruby away, causing the younger girl to whine before Yang grabbed her by the back of her hoodie and pulled her to one side. "It's serious time Rubes," she ordered then looked back at Blake.

Blake nodded gratefully at her and began. She talked about being part of the White Fang, how she had joined up to fight the good fight, to demonstrate with the others for better Faunus rights. How she had a few cousins who had been in Atlas and how their lungs had almost dissolved from their time in the minds. Weiss, who had stiffened at the mention of the White Fang and had begun to glare at Blake flushed at that, looking away for a second before going back to glaring. Then Blake began to talk about breaking away from the group after she realized that they weren't being respected so much is feared and Weiss's mood slowly changed again.

After they finished, the others were silent watching Weiss for her reaction. Weiss for her part breathed in and out several times before asking abruptly "You're not with them anymore?"

"No!" Blake said sharply shaking her head. "I haven't been for months, going on eight I think by this point. And I wanted to break away for a while said before that, I just couldn't…"

"That's enough!" Weiss said holding up a hand imperiously. "As long as you're not one of them now that's all that matters to me. I…" Weiss faltered then looked out the window once more before looking back again at her friends. "I can't honestly say that it would have been this easy for me to accept before I was... forced to face a lot of hard truths since coming to Beacon. But I can accept you as a Faunus Blake, I can even accept your past. I don't think I can really say that I'd be ever be comfortable with the White Fang and the way they're doing things, but at least I can understand why someone would think that violence was the answer. It **isn't** , and I hate the White Fang for what it's done to my family. But at least I can understand the perspective which might have driven you to think it was."

"I can accept that," Blake said with a smile. "Still friends?" she asked, holding out her hand.

"Still friends and team members," Weiss replied firmly, shaking the other girl's hand. "You have no idea how important both of those things are to me."

"Awesome!" Ruby shouted, reaching out to pull Weiss into a hug then grabbing Blake in one as well. Laughing Yang threw her arms around all of them, as Ruby shouted. "Team RWBY, one for all and all for one!"

"Hip, hip, hooray!" Yang and the other two shouted in turn, before they all fell to giggling.

 **OOOOOOO**

The next day as Ruby and the others returned to their classes Cinder appeared from her chamber here in Vale, only to find Emerald and Mercury arguing once more in the foyer. She didn't hear what they were arguing about thankfully because they both shut up the moment they saw her. That always amused Cinder, the fact that they would argue like children at the drop of a hat then stop like students when the teacher comes into the classroom. _Odd to think about but I suppose that is one thing I have in common with Goodwitch, the ability to silence a room._

"Cinder," Emerald said, bowing her head quickly to the older girl. "I, um I took the liberty of… that is…" she gestured, at the table between the two of them and Cinder noticed several breakfast items there, complete with a large glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, and two heavy-duty painkillers.

At the site of the brand of said pain killers Cinder's lips twitched. _What is it with women likening the aftereffects of my connection to Salem is PMS? Not that I'm complaining, it certainly makes it easier to both deal with the pain and explain things away._ Or at least it did once Cinder did away with the physical signs on her face, which she had this morning.

"Thank you Emerald," she said gracefully, moving to sit next to the girl. For a moment the two of them remained silent, while Emerald shot Mercury a look, something like happiness or pride there, and Cinder wondered if maybe she had been guarding the food from the boy. She put that from her mind though, looking at the two of them commandingly. "Are there any reports I need to know about?"

Mercury frowned a little. "Torchwick's little friend, the creepy one, was out of Vale for a time. No idea where she went in the end, but she came back happily and with blood on her sword."

Cinder nodded. "She is an assassin after all, Torchwick might have sent her on an errand."

"Tell Cinder the rest," Emerald said a sneer in her voice as she looked over at Mercury.

Mercury scowled at her, but when Cinder looked at him, he backed down quickly. "I think she knew that I was tailing her boss. She threw me off the scent quickly enough, and then came back smiling happily as you please, as if she had never done it. The girl is freaking creepy and her powers…I could probably beat her in a fight, but following her without her knowing no chance."

"Understood, and as you know I needed Emerald with me on my recent mission. Neopolitan is something of a wild card, however she is a wildcard with a limitation," Cinder said, then took a bite of the omelet that Emerald had ordered for her. When she was finished chewing she went on. "The girl is utterly devoted to Roman, and he is easily tracked in turn. They could try to run I suppose, but I doubt it," she ruminated thoughtfully, between bites.

"At least not yet. I think that the heat on them would have to be turned up quite a bit for them to think of running away from their stronghold here in the city of Vale. And as long as we keep an eye on Roman, Neapolitan becomes a secondary concern. Still, the news that she was sent somewhere interests me. I will follow-up on that when we return from our own little outing."

Both of them flinched at that, but made no comment. Instead Cinder looked over at Emerald, and she quickly took the hint. "The White Fang are still on board. They've begun to funnel troops into Vale, putting them to work with Torchwick. None of them are happy about that. Roman's not even hiding the fact that he's a racist, and the White Fang aren't hiding the fact that they hate working with him. There are a few though that are intelligent and professional enough that I think Roman will start to get along with them. One of them is named Perry, and he's one of the Lieutenants."

"But Adam is getting antsy, and sent a message that he wants another face-to-face soon." Emerald finished.

Cinder frowned at that, working her way through the rest of the omelet as she thought. "Is he angry about working with us still or simply angry about taking orders?"

Emerald paused, and thought for a moment before replying. "I think it's a bit of both Cinder. He agrees with our goals, and is happy enough to take the weapons we've been funneling to the White Fang, but he still hates the fact that we aren't Faunus and he doesn't like taking orders. I think though that's more simply male machismo than anything else. He might respect your power, but not your race or gender. Sorry."

"I know that isn't your opinion Emerald. Well done to spot that subtle point." Cinder said soothingly, watching as the girl flushed in pleasure. _From such small manipulations a true follower is made._ Then she asked seriously, "Do you think he will be able to sit on his temper for a while? Or should I meet with him soon?"

"I don't think meeting with Adam would be a good idea, unless you want to really break his pride," Emerald cautioned. "Instead, I think we should give them a target, maybe something in Atlas? I think just letting him get some blood on his sword will keep his temper down. He's really more of a field agent than a strategist Cinder," Emerald said, after once more thinking through her response.

Cinder nodded at that. "Very well, I will handle picking out a target for our bullish friend, while the two of you prepare for our own little mission."

 **OOOOOOO**

 _There was something_ _wrong_ _about this,_ Mercury thought several hours later, _something viscerally wrong_. It wasn't enough to make him wake off his business relationship with Cinder. Even in his own mind he was very careful to insert the word 'business' before the word relationship when it came to Cinder. Not that he wouldn't tap that of course, in Mercury's opinion Cinder had legs going on forever and a sexy body on top. But it would be like trying to stick your dick into a bonfire, perhaps quite literally. But working with Grimm touched off something deep inside of Mercury, something deep inside his primitive brain that said this was just wrong.

Case in point was the fact that right now he, Emerald and Cinder were all sitting on the back of their own Griffin type Grimm flying through the air. This type of flying Grimm that weren't often seen not being nearly as aggressive as other aerial types but very dangerous when seen. They were surprisingly docile once Cinder showed them that little beetle **thing** that she had used to strip their target of her powers a few months back. _And if Cinder hadn't been scary before that, she sure as hell is now,_ he thought to himself, watching as Cinder flew her Griffin in front of his own. Su _ch a lovely, lovely ass on that woman, and yet so utterly untouchable it's like pining for the moon!_

He snorted to himself, _hey, that was kind of poetic. I'm a poet and I didn't even know it._

Now Emerald, she was a hottie too, and not nearly as scary as Cinder. Mercury could already tell that she was falling for him. It'd just take a few more months or so together to get the dusky maiden over her tsundere act, and then they'd really have some fun.

Mercury was not someone who ever sweated the small stuff. He had money, he had food, he had a girl he could hit on and she couldn't call the police or run away. He also occasionally got to kill people, and threaten the White Fang members and Torchwick, who he despised. The older man thought himself so smart, and so tough that Mercury itched to wipe that smirk off his face. But Cinder said they still needed him, so Roman and his stupid hat and his admittedly creepy as all hell little sidekick got to live.

 _For now anyway,_ Mercury thought, while in front of him Cinder indicated they were heading down, Emerald following quickly. Eventually Roman wouldn't be needed any longer, and Cinder could deal with Neopolitan while Mercury could finally wipe that smug smirk off Roman's face. _Going to shove that Melodic Cudgel of yours up your ass Torchwick then pull the fucking trigger!_

The Griffins set down on the ground in a clearing of some kind, way, way beyond Vacuo's borders. There weren't any other Grimm in sight, but that didn't mean anything out here. Indeed, Mercury began to feel danger pressing in all around him, his semblance activating automatically, allowing him to see five seconds into the future. There was nothing there so see yet, but it was as if it was hovering just in the background, pressing in on him.

"What a dump," he said, covering his nervousness with a cocky attitude with the ease of long practice. "Why would anyone voluntarily live out here?"

"Because they have just as much to fear from other people as they do Grimm. And Grimm can be avoided far more easily," Cinder said, looking around them. "Somewhere near here we will find our quarry. Be **silent** and unseen," she emphasized, looking between the two of them "and leave no trace of our passage."

Emerald nodded seriously, but Mercury scoffed a little gesturing towards the strange bug looking Grimm thing on Cinder's hand. "What about that thing? Isn't it able to give you control of Grimm?"

"Not the ones that live out here. They'll let me pass if they see it, or rather if they see it first. And that protection might not extend to you too, especially if you are not with me at the time you are spotted. I wouldn't particularly care if you died Mercury, but I would hate to replace you in my plans so please obey my orders," Cinder said, her voice somewhat teasing, but with an air of command to it that made Mercury nodded rapidly.

About forty minutes later Emerald called them to her over their small short-range communicators. The other two quickly followed her signal and found her standing in front of what looked like a small cairn of some kind. Cinder moved forward, standing next to the darker-skinned girl, while Mercury knelt down to read the inscription before shrugging his shoulders and looking around again.

"That's somewhat sad," Emerald said. "That she's buried out here all alone I mean."

"I have it on good authority that she would rather like it this way," Cinder said dryly. "But this is not why we are here."

Mercury interrupted them just then. "Yum, pork chops."

At that both women turned. Looking where he was pointing they saw several goats, wandering aimlessly through the woods. "Two clues then. We must be close. Since we haven't seen any signs of any kind of actual house, look for a cave." Cinder ordered.

This time it was Mercury who found something, signaling the two women to join him quickly. Emerald looked into the cave, frowning as she couldn't quite see the end of it. "Looks like a small tunnel, leading into a larger cave at the end. Are there likely to be any traps?"

"Possibly," Cinder said thoughtfully. "In which case, Emerald, you're in charge."

Emerald nodded rapidly, moving forward quickly. She pulled out a flashlight from her backpack, flashing it all around then paused about three feet into the cave kneeling down and brushing her hand lightly over the dirt of the floor. As she did, there she revealed a small very thin rope, which she traced to one of the walls then up it. In the ceiling among the stalactites there looks to be some kind of trap. "Boost me up Mercury."

"Say please," Mercury said, only to flinch aside as Emerald threw a small rock towards his head.

"Just get over here!"

Huffing Mercury did so while Cinder watched. With Mercury a reluctant stepping stone, Emerald leaped up, high enough to grab at whatever was up there hidden among the small stalactites. She came down holding what looked like a bucket. Inside it rather than nails or anything else as she had thought was dried paint. "Let's hope all of the traps are that… comedic?" Emerald asked, shrugging her shoulders as the others looked at her.

Several minutes later she stopped again, this time staring at a tripwire that would've taken her between the eyes. She gestured the other two backwards, gently hooked a small wire to the existing one, and then followed them pulling quickly.

Again instead of anything dangerous, a few wooden slats came down from up among the stalactites again. They impacted the ground with what would've been painful force for anyone without aura, but what interested Emerald was the fact that they had writing on them. Using her flashlight she read them aloud. "'Go back', 'this way lies pain', 'what would your family think of you grave robbing', 'leave the dead be'. Someone thinks they're funny," she said dryly shaking her head.

"This is stupid!" Mercury said, striding past Emerald. "Someone's taking us for fools but obviously can't come up with anything actually dangerous, especially to someone with Aura."

"Wait you idiot don't!" Emerald shouted, moving quickly to grab at him but missing.

A second later, Mercury reached the end of the tunnel leading into the cave at the end. And as Emerald had predicted, there was another tripwire. Not directly at the entrance, but about three or four feet inside.

And this trap wasn't comedic at all. As mercury tripped it there was a crack from above, and a large slab of rock came down, smashing with deadly force.

Mercury's semblance activated, warning him of what was coming five seconds before it happened, so he was already moving backwards, racing towards the entrance, as Emerald turned and ran too. Cinder did the same, and the entire cave came down behind them.

For a moment the three of them simply stood there, Emerald and Mercury gasping at their near escape before Emerald started to curse the man out volubly while Cinder glared at him. "I take it you didn't see anything of import in there?" She said hotly reaching over to grab him by the shoulder. Her hand heated to a level that was painful to the touch and Mercury winced, biting back a yell of pain. He knew he had screwed up, but dammit, Emerald had been taking too long.

"There was nothing there!" he said, trying to stop himself from yelping. "Just a cairn in the center, with an image of a cat on it I think. No personal effects, no pictures, nothing!"

"Yet there could have been!" Cinder hissed, her hand now actually sizzling where it connected to his shoulder, burning through his clothing neatly. Once her hand was touching his skin Mercury gasped in agony, biting back a cry of pain.

Now that the message of her anger been delivered Cinder released him, looking over at Emerald. "Do you agree with his assessment?"

Emerald nodded answering seriously rather than launching another dig at Mercury, knowing Cinder was in no mood for it. "From what I could tell in that brief moment before the roof came down there didn't seem to be anything. I would've liked to look around since whoever set up these traps knew there pulleys and weights for certain. They could have hidden something, though I don't know how likely that is. We'd have to dig through this now to see though," she said gesturing towards the still settling rubble blocking the entrance. "Which would take a long time. And be really noisy just like this was."

Emerald locked eyes with Cinder, and Cinder nodded, conceding the point. "In that case, we've found nothing here. We'll have to think of some other way of trying to figure out who this new individual with Spring's powers is." _For now we will have to work on the assumption that the Azure Warden or his sister has Spring's power, set aside the possible mystery of a man wielding said powers._

As the dust of the cave in finally settled, Emerald leaned in suddenly, causing Cinder to turn from where she had been about to yell at Mercury once more. "What is it?"

"Another message, this time written in one of the stones," Emerald said. "'Laugh this one off' it says."

"Someone seems to have had a sense of humor," Cinder said thoughtfully, though she did feel her mouth ticking up into a smile. That was the kind of joke that she could get behind.

Emerald however simply laughed aloud shaking in her head. "That would've actually fooled a lot of people, including me maybe," she said ruefully. "After all those joke traps I really didn't see a dangerous one coming."

Mercury rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, so very nice." His eyes hardened, tapping one foot on the ground meaningfully, a clicking noise echoing from his heel. "If I ever meet the person behind this, I'm certainly going to **discuss** his sense of humor with him."

Rolling her eyes at the young man's bluster and obvious attempt to get over the fact that he had just screwed up by the numbers, Cinder gestured them to follow her. "Come, we will return to our transportation, and get out of here. After that, I'm going to drop you both off in Vacuo. I am going to talk to our Bullish friend, and then I think I'm going to Mistral..."

 **End Chapter**

* * *

Realize there wasn't very much violence or actual time elapsing in this chapter. However a lot of little scenes had to happen in a short span of time, or else they would be removed too much from the event which started them moving. In the next few chapters time will speed up and more main plot events will start occurring.

Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter, and think that I got the characters and how they act right. I think I did, but that should be obvious LOL. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter.


	12. Chapter 12

Rooster Teeth and Oda can animate/draw, I can't, though I think I do combat scenes just as good if in a different medium, LOL.

As many of you know I decided to only have a poll for my small story update this month over on Pat R on, given how I was updating Stallion of the Line and sharing the first chapter of FILFy teacher.

Semblance of Hope took the cup, with 664, hence why I am updating it LOL. Look forward to the next small story poll, which will replace my SW poll here on fanfic tomorrow. And as always, if you want more say in what stories get updated, please think about joining up on Pa T Ron.

This has only been seen previously by Hiryo, so I have no doubt that it will have a lot of mistakes, but hopefully there won't be enough to spoil the chapter.

* * *

 **Semblance 12: All Aboard**

While the kids were getting back into the groove being normal students for a little while, or rather as normal as Beacon students could ever be, Ranma headed out Sunday afternoon with Benzaiten. She wanted to have a drink, and he wanted some time on the town before classes resumed Monday. He also wanted to hunt up Neo if he could and figure out what the hell is going on there. Yet by the time the sun went down he'd had no luck finding her, and decided to stop for the day.

He met up with Benzaiten at a nearby park before the two of them headed to Junior's bar, finding a long line of party goers outside, which Ranma avoided, walking up the bouncer at the door. The bouncer on duty smiled, waving a mock salute towards the two of them before opening the door for them, ignoring back the small queue.

From the murmurs at his back Ranma thought at first that the crowd was irritated that they had been let in before them. But a few moments after they walked into the club he was disabused of that notion because at that point, the crowd began to cheer. "Wahoo, hell ya, you showed those Grimm who's boss!" and other words to that effect rang out from all quarters.

Ranma stopped looking around him rather startled while Benzaiten simply smiled, nodding her head slightly towards the crowd before grabbing his elbow and pulling him along. Even the bouncers were cheering, hell even Junior was cheering. "Is it really a surprise brother dear?" she asked. "Even the criminal types enjoy a victory over the Grimm. After all, Grimm do not make any allowance for if you're a law-abiding since citizen, or on the other side of the spectrum."

"True that," Miltia said, moving up to Ranma's other side and taking his arm in hers leading them not to the bar, but a table to one side of the dance floor where Melanie was already waiting. "You two and the rest of the Winners of Waypoint as you're being called in the news these days, are celebrities. Hell, even Blondie would have been welcomed back here, so long as she left her attitude at the door anyway."

"I wouldn't get used to it if I was you," Melanie said, winking at Ranma, gesturing him into the booth across from her. "It'll fade fast as soon as some celebrity or Councilman is found using his dick where he shouldn't."

"Must you be so crude?" Miltia asked, rolling her eyes but saying nothing more as she sat next to her twin.

"No, I do it for the shock factor," Melanie replied blandly, looking over at Benzaiten. "And I see you brought the little miss back. What, do you want to get your ass beat again?"

"As I recall, I only had to be helped home, **you** had to be carted," Benzaiten replied tartly. "If the little girl wishes to play in the big leagues, perhaps she should invest in a new liver?"

Melanie growled, but her sister spoke up before she could reply. "So, how what was it really like out there?"

The two siblings told the two twins about the battle at Waypoint in as minimal a fashion as they could. Neither were interested in going over the battle as a whole.

"Is it true you turned the tide by somehow challenging the S-class Grimm leading the horde to a one-on-one fight?" Miltia asked after they finished.

"Nah!" Ranma said with a laugh. "I used my Semblance to break its effect on the defenders that's true, but I sure as heck didn't fight it one-on-one It had a lot more of its friends around than I did. And I wouldn't've even been able to do that, if Professor Port hadn't been able to handle those two Jambavan. Or if the Dryder hadn't been stupid enough to send all of its Arachnids at the walls."

"Where myself and Sifu made short work of them. Well not short," Benzaiten said ignoring Melanie laughter. "It did take a long while after all, but not a one of them reached the walls alive. And Melanie, have you heard the phrase that a person living in a glass house shouldn't throw stones?"

Melanie waved that off airily. "I'm not small, I'm petite, that means that everything good simply comes in a smaller package. You're simply short, and your body isn't nearly as svelte as mine, your hips are too big and your chest far too OW!"

Benzaiten glared at her but Miltia slapped her sister upside the head before she could try and respond. "Don't take your irritation out on Miss Benzaiten," she scolded. "You'll have to excuse Melanie she thought she had found herself a boyfriend recently, but he stood her up last night."

"…Why?" Ranma asked blankly. "I mean you two are gorgeous so why would anyone stand you up? Unless they didn't know about your bouncer duties or something?"

"No, he knew about that." Melanie sighed, smiling at the compliment as her sister flushed at the same, leaning her head against her sister's. "I don't think he could handle being the beta in the relationship."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ranma asked looking blank again.

Benzaiten laughed, shaking her head. "If he couldn't handle that you were stronger than him, he wasn't worth your time," she said, calming down now that Melanie had stopped throwing insults her way and her desire to cause a fight had been explained. "Still, standing you up rather than breaking up with you, that's rather rude, did you get back at him somehow?"

At that point they were interrupted by Junior bringing over some drinks. "They're on the house Ranma," he said, clapping the younger man on the shoulder. "You being here is going to bring in heck of a lot more business for me tonight then you could ever drink after all."

Ranma looked at the door, which was now even more packed than before. He also saw a lot of people looking their way, their scrolls out and recording. Groaning, Ranma leaned back tryin to let the shadows of the booth cover his features. "How long do you think I should stay here for you to recoup your losses?" He asked dryly. "Oh, and I don't do autographs."

"Ah, don't be like that," Junior said with a grin. "Sit, have a drink have something to eat, then dance a few songs. Then you can disappear and everyone who's here to see you will probably stay after you leave. Besides, it's Sunday, we close early, and it's our worst day in terms of sales."

Ranma nodded having known that before, while Benzaiten looked a little confused. "It's a city ordinance," Ranma explained, "can't sell alcohol past sundown on Sundays. Don't know why, don't care why. Possibly some quasi-religious stuff."

While having found a sort of renewed faith in Amaterasu and Hachiman, Ranma hadn't really looked into what religions were like here on this planet. But he thought that they were a much more eclectic mix then on his old world. Patting his stomach he smirked at Junior. "You sure you want to attempt to feed me? I haven't eaten all day."

Junior laughed. "Like I said, you're just being here will make this possibly the most profitable Sunday I've ever had even if you eat your weight in food. So what can I get you?"

Later, the two twins had to excuse themselves for a few moments to break up some shoving matches, confiscate a few scrolls from people breaking the club's policy. But they were able to each dance with Ranma once, and even danced with Benzaiten, their earlier antipathy forgotten. While his sister continued to dance the rest of the night away Ranma spent some time talking to Junior.

"Since it's an early night do you want to come over and have a movie night?" Ranma said, as the Junior's men began to show people the door. "You haven't seen my new pad after all."

"A dormitory room is **not** worth being called a pad," Melanie said disapprovingly. "Still, it'll be nice to see how the other side lives." The two sisters exchanged a glance but said nothing more than that, heading back to work. They didn't want to tell Ranma that had things turned out differently, they might well have gone to Beacon themselves, but that hadn't happened.

As Benzaiten called to make certain there was a bullhead waiting for them at the airport, Ranma spotted something out of the corner of his eye, something pink, brown and white. "I'll be right back," he said to Benzaiten, who nodded, not looking up from her scroll. "I just remembered I have another little errand I forgot to do."

Benzaiten looked up at that and was about to reply scathingly that he had had the entire day to do his errands, but Ranma was already gone. She looked up, spotting him popping up onto a rooftop and frowned. Benzaiten felt that maybe she should follow him, but decided against it for now.

Several rooftops away Ranma stopped looking around him at the number of chimneys sprouting from the rooftops. "I know you're there Neo, I know you let me see you. Come out so we cannNN!"

Before he was able to finish his sentence, Ranma dove forward, his danger sense suddenly wailing at him for a second as Neo appeared behind him, her sword outstretched. Kicking out as he rolled, he forced Neo to block the kick, but she flipped with it easily using the momentum to gain more space. Then she stopped, smiling at him and bowing from the waist her cane sword scraping along the rooftop for a moment as she did.

At that Ranma stood up from his crouch, shaking his head at her. "You really need to work on how you greet friends y'know."

Neo mock-gasped, putting her hands on her cheeks then motioning between them quizzically. "Well back before I arrived here all of my friends've tried to kill me at one point or another. So to me you're probably the most normal friend I got here except for maybe Yang."

Neo's eyes narrowed as he compared her to Yang, but she shrugged off her irritation quickly. She gestured to her mouth then Ranma again, asking in her manner that he had something to say to her.

"What is you and Roman's game?" Ranma asked bluntly, moving over to her so they were looking at one another from a few feet away. This was comfortable talking range, but also enough space for him to react if she attacked him again. _You can never tell with Neo, and I don't have any ice cream on me._

"Why is Roman openly stealing dust? Where the hell has he been? Why were you there at Waypoint? And why were you so interested in my fighting style? Are you scouting me out?" Ranma asked rapid fire.

Watching Neo's eyes widened and Ranma narrowed his. "Yes Neo, I noticed how you were trying to figure out more of my abilities. But what I don't know is why."

Neo frowned in thought, tapping her chin but what she was thinking Ranma couldn't tell. In fact, the diminutive assassin was weighing the dangers of telling Ranma about what she and Roman hoped to use him for in the future, if it could somehow get back to Cinder, and how Ranma would react to it. Who would he tell, why, and would it help Ranma willingly help them get out from under Cinder's fiery thumb?

In the end she decided to gamble. Roman might not have in her place, but Neo had gotten a decent understanding of Ranma's personality by this point. Since he thought of them as friends, or maybe just Neo, they might be in the clear. With that in mind she took a step back, and began to pantomime.

Her hands went up above her shoulders, and she made a face like she was growling, then created a hat out of thin air and stood as if she was Roman, her saber resting on the roof point first like his Melodic Cudgel would have, one hand on it and the other on her hat, then she stood herself, before pantomiming the both of them again, then the scary thing. 'Roman' quailed, and Neo literally disappeared for a moment, reappearing over in a corner of the rooftop before walking towards Ranma looking at him expectantly.

Parsing through all that, Ranma slowly understood. "Something's after the two of you? No, not after you, has you?"

Neo nodded, gesturing him to continue with that line of thought. When he didn't, she rolled her eyes once more, and began again, though Ranma knew Neo well enough to know she was actually having fun with this. Yes, she had to use gestures to get her words across, but there was a reason why she didn't learn sign language: it simply wasn't as fun as making people guess her meaning.

She became the scary thing again then reached forward, grasping something, a bowler hat appearing between her hands for a second. Holding it out, Neo then set it in the air, before the scary thing moved on, disappearing into shadows she somehow summoned up.

 _So her power's illusion based rather than teleportation, good to know,_ Ranma thought with half of his mind. The rest was intent on understanding what she would say. Then Neo began to shine a flashlight as if it was a spotlight on the bowler hat and he got it. "A decoy? The two of you are being used as decoys?"

Neo nodded, flashing him a small smile.

"And you're not getting paid for this?" Ranma asked sharply. "The two of you are criminals, frankly you're probably the most dangerous criminals in Vale! I don't like the idea of someone coming along who's more dangerous than the two of you, but I'm not stupid enough to think you're innocent in this."

Neo shook her head and waved one hand off of her shoulder as if brushing away a fly saying d in so many gestures of 'course were being paid that doesn't matter!'

"Okay, so what does this have to do with me" Ranma asked, his tone still sharp. "If you're scouting me out for someone house, I'm afraid I'm going to have to draw the line there Neo."

Once more Neo shook her head, then gestured at his arm, raising her own up above her head as if she was using a shield.

"You want me to become your shield, or…" Ranma's lips quirked, and he imitated Roman's mannerism for a moment in reply to her own pantomime. "How would Roman put it, an ace in the deck?"

Smirking at him to show that he had correctly guessed how Roman saw him, Neo nodded once. Then she cocked her head, holding her hand out to Ranma. That Ranma understood to mean 'so can we trust you, will you help us?'

"Ever sell drugs?" Ranma asked after a moment. Neo shook her head. Drugs were fat too damn hot to peddle in any country unless the people doing it were on their own product. Even the Vacuan underworld wouldn't mess with that. "You or Roman ever kill a child?"

For the fourth time in as many minutes Neo shook her head, gagging slightly. Where would the prophet be in killing kids? Even holding them hostage was a bad idea. If you had to hold someone hostage, you would go right to the top, take the person who could make decisions with the money and extort it right from them.

Ranma frowned for several second then shrugged his shoulders. "Then maybe, **maybe** I'll be willing to help you both if it comes to that. But you'd have to tell me more about whoever is after you, and I might demand something in turn."

Neo nodded, understanding that the equivocal reply was the best she was going to get and having no problem with the idea of quid pro quo. After all, Ranma knew that she and Roman weren't pure as the driven snow, and for all that he didn't mind rubbing elbows with the criminal elements, or even befriending one like Neo's case, he wasn't a criminal himself. There was a limit to how far into their world he was willing to step.

She grabbed the bowler hat out of the air, and it disintegrated into thousands of different sparkling bits. It almost looked like glass for a moment before disappearing entirely. She bowed then to Ranma, and hopped away fading between one foot of air and the next.

Ranma waited a few seconds to make sure she was really gone before turning, hopping off the rooftop to rejoin her sister, wondering about the weird conversation and what would become of it. _Meh, probably some criminal power play crap, or maybe someone who's Semblance cancels out Neo's, and as far as I know, Roman doesn't have one. He's an okay fighter, but not as good as Neo, so that makes sense. Still don't know why whoever it is wants to force Roman into the spotlight… someone trying to corner the Dust market, or racking up prices? Small change whatever it is in comparison to the Grimm._

Landing next to Benzaiten Ranma smiled lightly. "Well that's done." Benzaiten looked at him, her eyes narrowed in thought, but she said nothing.

The two of them continued to wait for about ten more minutes before the twins came out having changed out of their normal matching red and white outfits for regular street where. "We're ready," they said in chorus before Melanie went on holding up a bag. "We've also grabbed a change of clothes so we can stay the night."

Ranma nodded, making no mention that he hadn't said anything about them spending the night. It just seemed as if that was the done thing with movie nights.

Unfortunately Ranma had miscalculated. While Neo was very much in favor of comedies or action flicks, Miltia and Melanie were both more into romantic or drama movie bent, and Benzaiten agreed with them. So he found himself watching a romance featuring a thief trying to go straight for his girlfriend. It was indescribably boring to him, until the few fight scenes came up, where he began his normal commentary. That had Melanie and Miltia in stitches, while Benzaiten provided the perfect straight man.

"All right we watched your kind of movie, can we watch mine now?" Ranma asked plaintively as the credits rolled. The hero hadn't even gotten with the girl he'd thought he wanted, instead getting with the local librarian, so Ranma didn't know if he really understood the point of the movie.

"No martial arts movies!" Benzaiten said preemptively. "An action flick is fine, but no martial arts movies."

"The new Die Hardest movie?" Miltia asked looking over the other girls.

Melanie nodded. "Spruce Willis is **so** dreamy, the perfect DILF." Then she paused covering her mouth for a moment and glaring at Ranma and Benzaiten. "And if you ever tell anyone I spoke like that ever, I will geld you."

When Benzaiten opened her mouth Melanie pointed at her "And I'll find something equally painful to do to you!"

Smiling, Benzaiten made to zip her mouth shut and throw away the key.

That night the twins took over Ranma's bunk bed, with Benzaiten and Ranma taking a beanbag each. While the others seemed to fall asleep quickly after a night of fun Ranma stayed awake, thinking about romance in general and his romantic prospects in particular. Despite having several actual fiancés and one crazy person out to marry him (or rather one per form) Ranma didn't really understand romance of all.

He understood flirting and he was getting better at it thanks to Yang but actual romantic feelings towards someone else? That was an area he had never really considered.

Ranma wasn't blind and he wasn't asexual. He had noted that Shampoo was actually interested in him beyond the whole needing to marry him to regain her honor thing, though Ranma had never looked at her that way. _Having her chase my female form for so many months killed any attraction between us. And looking back, I'm not certain Akane or Ukyo were interested in me as an individual. I… have no idea what Akane was thinking towards me, or if she had any feelings in that way at all. As for Ukyo, I think she liked me as a friend, then sort of, I don't know tacked on the idea of us marrying to that without really thinking it through._

Now, on the other hand, Ranma knew Yang was interested in him, and there was nothing negative in their past stopping him from returning it. _She's hot as hell, but I know I'm attracted to her, but is that really enough for a relationship? We seem to have a lot in common, but I don't know, what would dating her be like?_

 _On the other hand as young as we are, should I really be thinking about this like it's my one and only chance, like whoever I get with now I'll be with for the rest of my life? People break up and go on to date other people, right? Now I'm not being tied down with so many honor debts pulling me one way or the other that can actually happen with me can't it?_

Shaking his head at that, Ranma set those thoughts aside returning to a more familiar topic, and one he thought he could actually understand or at least as much as he could given the information he had: the meeting with Professor Ozpin, and Ironwood. The general's name still almost made Ranma break out into giggles but since giggles weren't particularly manly he kept them in, thinking about what he learned, what had been said, and what had been hinted at.

 _Ozpin and I still don't trust one another, and what he didn't tell me is just as important as what he did. There was a reason why he was so interested in my healing ability, though it's obvious he was hoping for more. Still, the idea that there is some other enemy out there, one that could possibly be working with the Grimm, that's_ _ **so**_ _not good._

 _Not,_ Ranma thought with a snort, _that the idea of humans making deals with the enemy is so strange. No, it's the other side of the equation that bothers me. A Grimm intelligent enough to not only communicate with humans but work with them or perhaps even suborn them? That's disturbing on a whole new level._

 _So was that supposition on up Ozpin's put part or not? Given that he and Ironwood haven't dropped the Atlasian Air fleet down their throats, they don't know who or where, so it could be. Do I trust him enough to open up without demanding he open up in turn?_

The answer to that was not really. Admittedly Ranma was basing a lot of his suspicion about Ozpin with the way Ozpin acted around Ruby, and how he had clammed up about his interest in her as well as what Spring had told Ranma about Ozpin. But that was enough for him for Ranma. _He's also hiding something in the school, bait he said, that despite this being a school. That reminds me too damn much of that Dumbledore guy._

With a sigh, Ranma set that problem aside too. If there was someone out there working with the Grimm, if there was a Grimm out there smart enough to work with people, there was not much Ranma alone could do about it. Not unless they found a target. With that thought, Ranma fell asleep.

 **OOOOOOO**

Salem leaned back in her throne ruminating on what her mental connection to Cinder had just informed her of, fighting off a slight involuntary shudder the cause of which she had no idea. _**"Very well. I'll admit that the trap you spoke of is… rather amusing… and it would have been even more amusing if one of your pawns had died. Certainly it would have been educational for the one that remained. But it is not important at the moment. Leave this second maiden to my other agents, dear queen. I don't want you in any way connected to the opening moves against him. Indeed, we might use this method to add to your cover."**_

" _You mean to involve our assets in Mistral then Mistress?"_ Cinder asked. The original plan was for Cinder, Emerald and Mercury to operate like a trainee Hunter team in order to infiltrate the Vytal Festival, their cover being that they came from Mistral's Haven Academy. Using the Tournament they would sow chaos and then assault Beacon from within where Cinder would kill the Autumn Maiden and claim the rest of Amber's power for herself.

" _ **Indeed. I have used my other pawns to put pressure on the councils of Vale and Mistral. This Azure Warden, who may in some fashion have taken the Spring Maiden's powers will be called in to solve certain problems that have arisen at sea and in Mistral itself."**_ Again Salem shuddered, though at least this time she understood the reason behind it. Like Ozpin, Salem wasn't quite able to truly believe that a man was using one of the Maiden's powers.

" _Are you sure that it's wise to involve myself and my pawns? I am happy with our paperwork, but not relying on the turncoat to the extent we already are."_ Cinder cautioned. _"Further who will you sent after him? Given his skill, whoever we send must be someone we are willing to lose, further adding to my hesitance to be involved at all."_

" _ **I will not use any of my agents on this affair just yet."**_ Salem's voice this time was deeper, sending a jolt of pain into Cinder's mind to make her better understand her position in their relationship. _**"If Ozpin anticipates a strike against the maiden, and witnesses your appearance or even that of your pawns, we will have lost the initiative. You and your pawns are the only agents Ozpin's order doesn't know about."**_

" _Very well mistress."_ Cinder replied, using all her considerable willpower to _"But then how…"_

" _ **I have more than enough Grimm for this my dear as you should well know. It is all a matter of bringing enough power to a point as I believe one of your human generals once said."**_

Cinder smiled. _"They also said that the unseen attack lands the hardest blow, mistress."_

" _ **True. Hence why your secrecy is paramount. Because of that, I want to be doubly certain that Adam and these two humans that you are using cannot betray you to your detriment."**_

" _I have already begun to make plans in that direction Mistress. Indeed, if Roman or Neo betray me, I might even be able to use their betrayal in turn, to further our aims in the future."_

" _ **Very good, see to it that it does. I will contact you again when I have more information on your role in the trap for this Second Maiden."**_

 **OOOOOOO**

Monday morning Yang woke up as usual, praying to the sun as it rose into the sky before exiting her room as quietly as possible. She wasn't quite quiet enough to keep Blake's ears from twitching, and she almost stopped to give her partner a head rub, but refrained instead leaving the room before closing the door behind her. Whistling cheerfully she moved towards Ranma's room, looking forward to both seeing him and sparring with him again this morning.

When she got there, she raised her hand to knock only to stop as she heard voices coming from inside. Placing her ear to the door, Yang recognized Benzaiten's voice, as well as Ranma's, but two others weren't nearly as welcome. _Dammit! He's got those skanks over? Okay his sisters there so that probably means nothing happened, but still!_ Resolutely Yang moved away from the door, straightened her shoulders, and not coincidentally at all thrusting out her chest before she knocked.

When the door opened, Yang smiled brightly at Ranma, moving in quickly so that either he had to move backwards or face the possibility of having her forward thrusting cleavage impact his chest. "Hey Ranma!" She said mock-cheerfully, "you ready to go exercise? I wanted to check if I had left some of my special shampoo here first."

"Yeah ya did, if it's that bright pink bottle anyway." Ranma said rolling his eyes and moving to one side even as he tensed. "Hey girls, this is Yang, you probably remember her."

"Understatement of the year there Ranma," Melanie groused, glaring at Yang. "What's the blonde cow doing here?"

"She is a student here," Benzaiten replied before Yang could explode. "And what have I told you about letting your envy show?"

"Envy? Towards this top heavy bint?" Miltia said, joining in the smack talk for once, the memory of their beating at Yang's hands still fresh in the girl's minds. "Please, if not for her Semblance she'd probably overbalance every time she threw a punch."

"Wow, Beni was right you are jealous. Don't worry girls, there's something to be said to being fla-er, I mean to being proportioned appropriately," Yang replied, smirking at the shorter girls.

"Ugh, someone tell the blond ape that monkeys aren't supposed to talk," Melanie growled, standing up quickly.

"It's just aping human nature sister, poorly, but I suppose given the size of its brain that should be expected." Miltia supplied.

"Oh, now we're doing blonde jokes are we? Really trolling in the gutter there, though given where you two work I don't suppose that's too far a trip!" Yang growled.

"Oh that's it!" Melanie shouted forgetting for the moment she wasn't wearing her combat stilettos. "You want to go bitch?"

"Hell yes, I'd love to beat you skanks down again!" Yang roared, cocking her fist back.

"Alright that's enough about that!" Blake suddenly said, from behind Yang in the still open doorway. Gambol Shroud flicked out, grabbing Yang's arm and pulling her back and off balance. "Yang this is our dormitory, do you remember what Professor Goodwitch said she'd do to anyone who started fight in the dorms?"

"Oh, hey Blakey, didn't see ya there," Yang replied, calming down immediately and smiling happily at her partner. "And you're not wearing you're bow, awesome!"

Before Blake could get away from her partner, who she was honestly beginning to believe could be bipolar, Yang had thrown an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into the room. "Look Ranma, Beni, isn't she cuter like this? Although, what are you doing here anyway? Did I wake you, I'm sorry."

"You didn't at first, but when you forgot to close Mr. Saotome's door I was able to hear what was going on. Then I figured I'd do my good deed for the day and head off the rampaging Yang. Weiss woke up after I opened the door, and she and Ruby followed me." Blake muttered, her ears almost drooping as the others in the room looked at her.

At the same time the two shorter members of team RWBY, looked into the room from the hallways, staring at the twins quizzically. Judging by the way her eyes were flicking between the two twins and Ranma, as well as the blush becoming obvious on her pale skin, Yang would have bet she was imagining something from one of Blake's Ninja's of Love books.

Her attention however went back to her partner as she spoke up hesitantly, staring at the two teachers. "Um…"

Beni smiled softly at the younger girl. "I'm glad you stopped hiding dear, and Ms. Xiao Long is right, you do look better this way."

Blushing Blake looked over to Ranma, noticing that he had retreated from where he had been standing between the two twins and Yang. Now he stood with the counter top between him and Blake. "Erm, yes, uh, you look good…."

"I'd still rather people see me rather than their own preconceived notions, but I talked it over with my team last night, and they had a point. Every time a Faunus goes through the academy they make it easier for those who come after us," Blake said, cocking her head as she looked at Ranma, moving further into the room with Yang. "So you already knew?"

"Well yeah, er, I could tell right away," Ranma said, still keeping the table between the two of them. Blake narrowed her eyes at that, and he took a hasty step backwards. She moved around the table, watching in fascination as he moved exactly clockwise with her. _Heheh, this is kind of fun,_ Blake thought, her cat-like desire to play coming out. "I see, still, I hope I can rely on you and Miss Benzaiten to tell the other teachers. I doubt all of them had been informed by Ozpin about my heritage. I can handle the backlash from the student body, but not the teachers."

"Bigotry like that is actually against Beacon rules, so you don't have to worry about that." Benzaiten supplied, watching with amusement as the twins did the same. They weren't certain what about this new girl had spooked their friend, but watching him was still quite funny.

"Er yeah, that's true I guess," Ranma said, still circling the tabletop. "I won't allow any crap like that and I doubt Glynda would either and would you stop doing that!?"

"What's wrong Ranma?" Ruby asked quizzically. "Oooh do you want to pet her ears? They're supersoft!"

"I said that was a one-time thing Ruby!" Blake hissed, and Ranma leaped back towards the window.

Blake turned back to him only to blink as she looked at how far he'd gone. Now Ranma looked as if he was ready to bolt out the window for goodness sakes. "Is something wrong?"

"Just, just stay away from me, ok?" Ranma said. "It's not a Faunus thing, if it's not anything to do with you, just I'm not good with little furry demons from hell that's all!"

With that before anyone could stop him Ranma opened the window and leaped out and away.

"A fear of cats?" Melanie asked questioningly.

"That didn't look like any kind of instinctual fear," Weiss mused, staring out the window towards Ranma. "That was definitely more of a learned response, almost Pavlovian."

Melanie nodded, exchanging a shudder with her sister. "Just like us and cockroaches."

All of the girls there shivered at that, though none of the others as profoundly as the two twins while what remained of the tension between Yang and the two of them evaporated. Melanie looked over at Yang and shook her head. "You don't have to worry on us encroaching on your territory or anything Blondie. I'll admit my sister here was a little interested Ranma at first, but he is a little too visible now for our tastes."

Miltia sighed and nodded. "He would've made a great boyfriend. That body, and have you seen him dance?"

The only girl there who wasn't sporting a blush at the moment was Benzaiten. Even Ruby was looking a little thoughtful, before she shook it off, frowning as if she hadn't realized she had been doing it.

"Hmmf, as if there would've been any **real** competition in the first place," Yang said, shaking her head to clear it of the image for a moment. "And thanks for the idea," she went on in a much more mellow tone. "I'll definitely get him dancing as soon as I can."

"Actually," Ruby said "Jaune's supposed to be a really good dancer too. He said so, and I asked his sister about it when we were in Waypoint, and she agreed. Maybe we could have a dance off or something."

"That could be fun, in way more ways than one," Yang replied, actually licking her lips while Weiss blushed even more and Blake rolled her eyes. "Now, however I need to catch up with the speeding Ranma," Yang went on, moving towards the window.

As Weiss muttered about barbarians not being able to figure out simple elevators in an effort to combat her blush Miltia looked over at Yang. "By the way, does his name mean anything? I think all Asian names somehow translate into different phrases or something in English right?"

Yang nodded. "It means Wild Stallion." Both twins blushed at that and Yang cackled, winked at them, and then hopped out the window after Ranma.

After that the kids went back to class as normal. Blake being a Faunus drew a lot of stares and mutters at first, but not nearly as many glares or scowls as she had feared. A few did glare, like Cardin's team and a few others of their ilk, but even Cardin didn't say anything, merely glaring and keeping his distance.

Beyond that, there were signs that some things had changed in terms of how the teams that had fought at Waypoint were perceived by the rest of the student body. Team JNPR and team RWBY were getting respectful looks from the upper classes, not just team CFVY and team RUST any longer. Even in class there were some differences. The teachers were remarkably understanding in terms of unfinished homework for one thing, something that only Yang, Nora and Jaune needed but it was still nice. Professor Port called the students who were involved in the battle to describe the various Grimm they had seen, and the dangers each of them had represented against the defense of Waypoint.

Having watched from the rafters, Ranma hopped down after the last student left. "How much do you want to bet that a lot of the students will be rethinking their team tactics form' at this point, trying to fit their tactics to match the enemy?"

Port bellowed merry laughter. "I should hope that all of them do but we will see."

"I also think that you should warn the young boys and girls not to get a big head about it, I understand that Glynda has prepared something to pop such bubbles on tomorrow."

"I wouldn't have expected anything less from her," Ranma said with a grin. "In fact, I might have some ideas along those lines myself."

After class ended, Forge Master Reginald came by to personally collect Ruby and Nora, having already picked up the first four weapons. They would continue to work on them during their free periods, which were usually used for whatever the teams decided to do, and after school until the job was done. He showed them to a room to one side of the main weapons repair facility, which had been cleared of everything but a series of parts, two tables, and tools. "Alright you two, sit."

With trepidation filling their souls Nora and Ruby complied, shuddering as the teacher fitted them both with large headphones. "Okay you two, here are the weapons you need to finish today. Get to it." with that he flicked on a nearby stereo, the headphones having already been linked to it.

As the sound of 'This is the song that doesn't end' began, Nora and Ruby both wondered if maybe they had chosen their punishment poorly…

 **OOOOOOO**

Glynda had indeed made plans to bring the two freshman teams down to Earth, but of course she couldn't' just concentrate on them. She had to create a lesson plan the whole class would learn from. And she had done so by replacing the physical fitness class on Tuesday with a team exercise, though Glynda had allowed Ranma to add his own bit of fun to it. This was why the freshmen were greeted with a prop that looked like it had been taken from a game show when they entered the arena.

"Ladies and gentlemen welcome one and all to the wheel of misfortune!" Ranma said stepping forward and gesturing to the wheel.

As the students laughed at his overly dramatic explanation, Ranma went on. As he had been the one to actually build the wheel in question, Glynda had decided that he should be the one to explain what it actually was for. "On it you see various ailments, each of them chosen from things that Aura cannot help you with. Twisted ankles, dislocated shoulders, blindness, exhaustion, all the way down to a stubbed toe or jammed finger. The purpose of this exercise is to force you to think about how you would fight if you lose a limb or other things, what your team would do as a group, and specifically what would you do alone."

That drew a lot of mutters from all corners. It was obvious that a lot of the students hadn't considered the full range of things Aura couldn't help them with before this, or that they could be tested on it. Having said that thought, Ranma was surprised to see Weiss and Ruby exchanged a quick high five when no one was looking. The proud looks on their faces just then implied that the two of them might well have seen this exercise coming.

As the mutters began to grow louder Glynda stepped forward, and there was instant silence. _Man I have got to learn how she does that,_ Ranma thought, stepping back and to the side two paces.

This left Glynda front and center, and she began to explain the exercise in greater detail. "Each team will send up a representative to spin the wheel on my right. Then the names of your team will be inputted into the randomizer system in the classroom's computer, which will assign the symptom to a specific member of your team. You will have five minutes to discuss, then you will be run through a series of holographic courses, again chosen randomly, and you will have to get from point A to point B."

"To make this even more difficult, we are going to add another little caveat. The objective of the team going from point A to point B will be to guard a VIP." There were some wide eyes at that, and it seemed to take even Weiss and Ruby by surprise. The only one who didn't look visibly surprised was Cardin, astonishingly enough. "The backstory will vary depending on the randomly chosen terrain, but you will receive a failing grade if your team survives and the VIP does not."

Glynda paused then asked the class if they had any questions before pointing at Weiss. "Professor Goodwitch, should we assume since we will be escorting a VIP that we will be pitted against other Hunters or criminal elements?"

"Yeah like the White Fang!" shouted one of Cardin's team, Dove Bronzewing. "I bet we could ask a few here to play them, after all, all animals think alike.

Blake stiffened, but Glynda shook her head sharply. "No, Ms. Schnee you will not be pitted against human opponents. Training against groups of other people outside of sparring against other teams does not occur until your junior year. You will instead face successive waves of Grimm. And Mr. Bronzewing if you say such a grossly racist comment in my presence again I will have you cleaning out the public bathrooms in Vale for the rest of your time as a student here, do I make myself clear?"

To that horrifying threat the boy subsided, but one of his teammates, Russel Thrush, spoke up. "Professor, how likely is it that we'll face some of these anyway, I mean come on what's so bad about a stub toe? Or a twisted ankle, surely Aura can protect against that!"

Glynda answered in her patented 'talking to idiots' voice. "As we've mentioned before, no it cannot protect against twisted ankles. Aura cannot protect you against the laws of physics ladies and gentlemen! Yes," she held up a hand as a few of the freshman made to speak "Semblances can and do break the laws of physics or even what normal people would consider laws of reality."

Ranma snorted at hearing that, considering that Glynda's powers certainly were among those that did just that. She made no motion she had heard however as she finished her speech. "But aura alone cannot."

"Yeah but how would we have gotten injured in the first place if we have aura?" Russel said still sounding condescending and sort of confused the same time.

It was obvious to all three teachers at this point that he was deliberately trying to hold the class up and Ranma dealt with it in his normal forthright manner. "Well I could show you by dislocating your shoulder." Ranma said with an evil little grin on his face. "Want to volunteer?"

"Dislocated shoulders are the same sort of thing as twisted ankles. Once you have an injury like that, your aura will not be able to heal yourself without medical attention first," Glynda said, gesturing Ranma back behind her once more. "This is again an area we have already covered Mr. Thrush, is there a reason why you're wasting my time and the time of your classmates going over things you should already know? Or should I simply assume that you are not taking my classes seriously as you should be, and order you to leave? I have no time for fools in this class."

Whatever Russell was going to say was interrupted by Cardin reaching up and grabbing him by the back of his neck, hauling him back into his chair and whispering harshly enough that several other freshmen nearby could hear it. "What the fuck are you doing!? You don't mouth off to Goodwitch! If you don't want to take the combat class seriously, don't show up."

"What the hell, why're you taking it so seriously these days Cardin?" said Dove whispering the words harshly. "I would've thought you would be the first to want to just lay back and laze about. And we haven't even tried to do anything to Belladonna."

"Yeah, I'd love to get that pussy, in more ways than one." Said Russel with a grin. "You know what they say about cat girls."

From where she was seated Blake was listening to this and it was only the fact that Yang had grabbed her wrist when she saw Blake's ears perking up straight in outrage that kept her seated. If she tried to get away from that grip it was all too likely she'd be the volunteer Ranma had asked for a moment ago.

"Just shut up the pair of you," Cardin said harshly, looking over at the first team that was being called up. "I might not like animals or working with them, but I don't want to be known as B-rate Hunter. I don't want to just skate by on my Father's name. If you two don't want to put in the work to be real Hunters, we'll talk about it after class maybe see if we can split the team. Until then shut up, or you'll answer to me."

Ranma watched as the teams were fed into the holographic system one after another. The system would fill the arena portion of the classroom with different settings matching the movements of the students and changing the terrain as they moved.

It was a truly amazing example of computer technology, and according to Glynda they had Ironwood and Professor Ozpin to thank for installing it this past summer. Since it was a new system Glynda was still learning how to best use it, but she and Benzaiten had come up with several scenarios, and this one seemed to be working very well. Ranma didn't think it was quite as realistic as taking the students out to the nearest forest and running them through some of his obstacle courses, but it was damn useful anyway.

He continued to watch as each team was put in through their paces. _Huh, I thought RWBY would have trouble, with Blake having been blinded, but it looks as if they were able to handle that relatively easily._

They still took a lot of hits, and Ruby in particular had been hit many times, her Aura flashing into the red. But all four of them and the computer generated VIP got through the Grimm infested forest that they were operating in without losing anyone. Team JNPR did just as well, though in their case Ranma detected a faint hint of prior planning for a city scape, and they didn't have to deal with worse than Nora have sprained one of her wrists.

Ranma's guess was borne out as they exited the holographic display area. All three of his teammates congratulated Jaune on having walked them through what made cityscapes so dangerous before this, and how he had led them through.

On Wednesday however, things flipped back the other way. Glynda had decided to continue to force the partnerships of every team apart, forcing them to work with other people on their teams. This time it was Jaune and Nora, and once more, Nora proved difficult to work for.

However unlike the previous class that had done this exercise, Glynda said nothing, simply shaking her head sadly at the girl and waving her off. "I trust at at this point the teams are solid enough to solve any internal issues on their own." She called out in a loud voice, not directed at Nora but at her and a few others who hadn't been able to work together very well.

"Yes Ms." Jaune said, "We'll handle it."

"I think we need to have a team heart to heart," Jaune said, gesturing grimly at the other three members of team JNPR to follow him as the class broke up. "Bring your weapons, we might need them before Friday."

The three of them looked at him quizzically, but followed easily enough. Pyrrha almost never left her weapons in her locker at all, and Nora would take any opportunity to get around Ren and Jaune's rules on not having Magnhild in the dorm room. _You'd think they wouldn't get so mad about just one hole knocked into the wall, but no! it's all, Nora you can't enlarge our windows with a hammer, or you can't make a little alcove for your Napsalot._ Napsalot was the name of Nora's stuffed sloth _._

Jaune led the room the group back to their rooms, where he dropped his sword unceremoniously on the ground, and hurled his shield on to his bed so hard it actually bounced up and slammed into the wall with enough force to dent it. The wall, not the shield. While not made of the same material as Crocea Mors or Ranma's shield, Jaune's was still darn tough.

"All right Nora! This is the second time you've gotten us into trouble with your inability to work with anyone but Ren as your partner. I'm not trying get between you or anything, but this is a team," Jaune said, his voice sterner than the others had ever heard it before as he gestured violently to Nora to sit down across from him on her bed.

"You need to work with us!" He went on, emphasizing the words by poking the bed next to him. "You're intelligent Nora, I've seen your scores in the classes where you care enough to put forth the effort, and I'm not going to comment on the classes you don't. The rest of us do well enough to keep our grade average up to where it has to be in order for us to keep our privileges. We're willing to take the slack there, but **not** in combat class. Not when your refusal to work with us like this could get us hurt in the field."

Nora's expression had gone mulish the moment she sat down, and now she huffed and looked away. "Ren is my partner! I don't want any partner but him!"

Ren laid a hand on Nora's shoulder and looked over at Jaune. "Jaune, I understand your point, and I agree with you." Nora looked up at him, but he squeezed her shoulder again and she subsided. "However, you have to understand that trusting other people isn't as straightforward as you might think."

"Then tell us about it," Jaune said simply, his anger evaporating in an instant.

Ren smiled slightly. Nora's inability to work with Jaune had actually gotten Jaune 'killed' during their class exercise earlier, but whereas another person would still have harbored anger about that, since Jaune had been the one to get the failing grade, Jaune seemed to have simply used it as a motivator to get them talking. Despite some reservations at first Ren had to approve of their team leader. Jaune's personality meshed very well with the rest of the team, and he seemed able to get the most out of them as a group.

It was only working one on one with Nora that still caused issues all around. indeed in many ways Jaune and Pyrrha had gotten far closer to Nora, and to Ren himself, than anyone else had for years. And that in a short amount of time too.

Sitting down next to Nora Ren took her hand in his, looking across as Pyrrha sat down beside Jaune. She leaned her back against the far wall from Jaune's bed while he leaned against the headrest.

"You see," Ren began, "Nora and I are orphans. We, our entire village was wiped out by Grimm, when we were very young. Since then we were sent from one orphanage to another, never staying in one place really long enough to settle down. Because of that we've only had one another to really rely on, to really allow close. So while we're willing to work with you and as a team, partners are a different story, a different level of trust we haven't yet reached despite everything that has happened since we met."

"But we still need to overcome it," Jaune said softly, shaking his head sadly at their tale. Although he did note that Ren had said 'they' still had issues, which was interesting and Jaune wondered if that was just a way to take more pressure off Nora or not. "However, if it's just the case of not knowing us well enough, then I think we need to spend more time together and by that I think we I mean one of us needs to spend more time with Nora and one of us needs to spend more time with Ren, without either of the others around."

He paused as they all looked at him blankly, and he sighed. "I mean I'll hang out with Nora minus Ren. While I'm doing that, Ren and Pyrrha will also spend time together. We're done with classes for the day so I'll book us a bullhead into Vale and Nora you can show me what you do for fun, and I'll show you what I do for fun for the afternoon. We'll switch off in the evening, and then you and Pyrrha can bond okay?"

Nora looked a little hesitant, and Jaune decided to sweeten the deal, literally. "Ren, do you think you could cook us up some pancakes, enough maybe to give Nora here is a midday snack? Just in case we don't find a restaurant that meets her exacting standards for pancakes."

Nora nodded happily at that, but Pyrrha raised a hand. "Could I make a suggestion? Could I be the first one to hang out with Nora today? Other than simply talking about classes or combat related topics, I don't think the two of us have interacted even as much as you and Nora have Jaune, and I think I'm partly to blame for that. I do tend to be a little too focused on my own training don't I?"

Pyrrha blushed is all three of her teammates said "just a little bit," but then Jaune softened the joke by patting her on the foot. "Don't worry about it Pyrrha. You're a Hunter, and there is no such thing as being too serious about training."

"So we're agreed?" He asked looking over at Nora and Ren. "Pancakes, you hang out with Pyrrha during the afternoon, and during the evening with me? With no Ren around?"

Nora hesitated again, but then Ren squeezed her hand and she nodded. "I'm cool with that. So long as we find something fun to do anyway."

"Leave that to me!" Jaune said tapping his chest. "I'll find us fun stuff to do in the city never fear."

A second later Jaune exited their dorm room. Rather than going to go to the bathroom as he had said he would since Pyrrha was taking a shower in theirs, he moved towards Ranma's room, knocking on the door quickly.

Ranma opened the door looked at him quizzically. "Hey Jaune, what's up?"

"Can you tell me what there is to do for fun in Vale?"

"Depends on who's asking," Ranma said cocking an eyebrow at him and gesturing Jaune inside.

"First me and Nora, then me and Ren and Pyrrha and Nora." Jaune replied, looking around. The room hadn't changed much in the few days it had been since he had seen it last, which probably meant that Yang hadn't had cause to do more impromptu demolition.

Ranma thought for a moment tapping his chin thoughtfully. He pulled out his scroll, connecting it to the TV where he popped up a map of Vale as he thought. "Pyrrha and Nora will probably make their own fun. As for you and Ren, there is an arcade that I've been meaning to check out. In fact, if you go to that I'd like to go with you if that's okay. As for you and Nora, there are a few parks, a few batting cages, an arcade that specializes in fighting games, it's called the Pit, over here, and then there's this... I think Nora will get a kick out of that. I know I did."

Jaune cocked his head thoughtfully looking at the map, wondering what Ranma was getting at, but then Ranma enlarged the name of the building he'd tapped, and Jaune's eyes widened. "Yes, I can definitely see her enjoying that! But is there a zoo?"

That one Ranma had to actually think about, but then he enlarged a portion of the map showing where a zoo was. The two of them spend a few minutes getting directions from the airport to the various places, then Jaune thanked Ranma, and left quickly.

Pyrrha looked up at him from where she was brushing her hair, Nora and Ren sitting on Ren's bed going over some homework. She cocked an eyebrow at Jaune, and Jaune's shrugged, holding up his scroll and gently twitching it in Nora's direction. Pyrrha got enough of that to nod before going back to what she was doing.

"Just to be clear do you and Nora already have plans?" Jaune asked. "I came up with a lot of things that are fun in Vale after all, so you two could poach a few of them if you want."

The two girls exchanged a glance. It was a much more telling than the one that Pyrrha had given Jaune a second ago. "Will be making our own entertainment I think," Pyrrha said dryly, making Jaune start since Ranma had said pretty much the same thing about the two of them.

Nora's eyes gleamed, and she seemed to bounce in place. "Yep, no worries about us Jaune, we'll be just having fun right here…"

 **OOOOOOO**

About fifteen minutes later Jaune smiled at Ren, who was looking a bit worried at the door Nora and Pyrrha had just walked through. "Come on man, you two need time apart just as much as Pyrrha and I need time with Nora. Stop worrying about her, they aren't even going to be leaving school."

"I know, but I can't help but worry every time Nora is out of sight." Ren held up a hand when Jaune made to speak, going on in a droll tone. "And no, it isn't that I'm worried about Nora, I'm worried about what she might do."

"…That's a point," Jaune said from his albeit limited knowledge of Nora that actually made far too much sense. "Still, it's Pyrrha's problem now. Let's go, I seriously need to refill my guy gage."

"What?" Ren asked, falling in beside Jaune, a faint smile on his face. "What exactly is a guy gage."

"I'm the only boy among seven sisters, and you and Ranma are my only guy friends. It just gets a bit overwhelming sometimes. In more ways than one." Jaune muttered, blushing slightly.

Jaune normally sat near Ruby during several of their classes and today Ruby had unintentionally pressed her chest against his back when she had gotten up from her chair. That was actually the mildest moment he'd run into since arriving at Beacon. Every day something happened to remind him that six out of seven of his friends were

"Hmm, you make a good argument. But what exactly will we be doing that we couldn't do with Nora? Most of the time she acts more like a guy than I do. At least in terms of normal teenagers, has she ever mentioned how she won a belching competition once?"

"Ermm… is that where she earned Napsalot?" Jaune queried. He raised a hand and knocked on Ranma's door, turning back to Ren as Ranma joined them.

Nodding at their youngest teacher Ren turned back to Jaune. "Indeed, or rather she won enough tickets to trade in for him. It was at a fair, and one of the things they always did was come up with something gross to have a contest about. That was the first one I let her enter, while the others were a little too much to let her enter."

"So, arcade first right?" Ranma interjected. The two younger boys nodded, and he led them to one of the school's bullheads, getting into the pilot's seat himself.

At this Jaune blinked in surprise, feeling a sense of forbidding filling him. "Ranma, you've got a pilot's license?"

"No, but I'm thinking of studying for one. How hard can it be though?"

"Geh.." Jaune choked, then quickly grabbed Ranma arm, trying to stop him from taking the controls. Ren joined him and between them they convinced Ranma of the wisdom of waiting for the pilot to arrive.

A quick ride in the air found them all walking away from the small landing area in Vale, Jaune smiling happily. "Ahh, I seriously am going to have to do something nice for your sister soon. Those anti-nausea pills she made for me work a treat. I can't tell you how much it means to me to not be blowing chunks after a flight."

"She apparently likes seafood, if you're of a mind to cook for her." Ranma said with a smile. "So, action movies, fighting games, sports, um… what else are guys supposed to do while there're no girls around. Besides trade porn mags and drink anyway. I don't read that shit, and getting drunk is not nearly as much fun the next day."

"Ranma, I grew up with seven sisters. I barely know the meaning of personal space, let alone real privacy." Jaune deadpanned, shaking his head. "The only time I've even seen a porn mag was on trips to Vacuo. As for going out for drinks, unless you're buying no way."

"Intellectually speaking I wonder which would be worse, your sisters or Nora. Nora knows the code I use for my scroll," Ren supplied, shaking his head.

"Ouch. Still, I'll raise you that with a mother who never let me have a private scroll until I started going to Beacon. What about you Ranma? What was growing up out in the boonies with Benzaiten and your father like?"

"Hmm… my old man huh. Well, Genma was a… well he was an utter bastard outside of martial arts. He could teach that to an insane degree because he was insane in a lot of way. Heh, on the subject o' porn mags, he never gave me the Talk, and when I first got a stiffy he tried to make me ignore it."

Ren and Jaune stopped, staring at Ranma who shrugged before doing an impression of his father. Unlike Yang's impression of Weiss that morning, Ranma's impression of Genma was nearly spot on. "Boy, such things are a distraction from the Art boy! What you need is more training, that'll get your mind off it."

"That is horrifying." Ren deadpanned. "Even I've had the Talk, though it was possibly the most clinical version of it ever given."

"Okay, changing the subject hurriedly, I'm hungry. Let's get some food and then head to the nearest arcade." Jaune said, resolutely picking up speed and forcing the other two young men to follow him.

 **OOOOOOO**

Pyrrha and Nora stood across from one another in the arena, with Benzaiten watching from one side. "Are you sure about this?" the teacher asked skeptically. "I wouldn't think that fighting one another would be the best method of bonding."

"You learn a lot about one another if you cross swords with them," Pyrrha replied. _And I really doubt Nora would enjoy anything I routinely do for fun._ This list included reading comics and fantasy novels while eating something small and decadent, meditating, practicing, and long hikes. Although given the time they'd had in Waypoint Pyrrha had decided to get into action movies in the future.

"Hehehe, yep! And this will be fun anyway!" Nora said, twirling Magnhild around in her hand. She was actually just as interested in fighting Pyrrha given her former Invincible Girl label.

Nora also wanted to wail on Pyrrha for always tryin to give her orders when they were paired up. Nora was willing to follow Jaune's orders as a team since he'd proven himself many times since they had met, but Pyrrha hadn't and something about the way she assumed that role irritated her. It didn't irritate Jaune or Ren, though admittedly she and Jaune worked best when they were bouncing ideas off one another. Ren was so laid back and calm he could work well with any of his team members. Nora was so aggressive and so straight forward that she couldn't really understand the concept of more tactical warfare. And when Pyrrha tried to gently correct her, Nora became even more stubborn.

"Very well. This will be a ten minute bout or until one of you submits, agreed?" When both freshmen nodded, Benzaiten smiled thinly and hopped away, landing in the seats of the classroom. "Begin."

The two combatants immediately began moving, Nora charging straight in while Pyrrha dashed forward on an angle, looking to get around Nora's initial charge. This worked but Nora turned quickly, bringing Magnhild around in grenade launcher mode. Pyrrha dodged through them, but Nora surprised her by loading a purely smoke grenade into her weapon. The third grenade filled the arena with smoke, and this allowed Nora to get in close.

She wasn't able to get a drop on Pyrrha however. One of the things her powers of polarity did was allow Pyrrha to track metals around her, and this in turn allowed her to anticipate where Nora was in the smoke. So Nora got a surprise as she brought her hammer through where she thought Pyrrha was.

Pyrrha ducked under the blow, brining Akuo in sword form, only for Nora to extent Magnhild's shaft, blocking the blow. Nora then hurled Pyrrha away, her greater strength overcoming Pyrrha's better position. "Rah, Nora smash!"

In reply Pyrrha opened fire, hitting Nora several times and causing her Aura counter to slide into the orange before she could roll out of the line of fire. Unlike their teammate Jaune, Nora merely had a decent Aura reserve, and she knew she couldn't take much more of that. Scowling and realizing her trick had been turned against her Nora switched Magnhild back into grenade launcher mode. An instant later several explosions rocked the arena blowing away the smoke. "Grah, get out here you little red mouse!"

Pyrrha however had somehow closed the distance despite Nora's grenades and she leaped toward her teammate, Akuo in javelin form, Milo up and ready. Nora smacked Akuo to the side but took a shield bash to the face from Milo. Then before she could recover Pyrrha swung away, Akuo still in Javelin form sweeping Nora's legs out from under her. "I've always seen myself more as a lioness myself!"

"Grrr, stay still!" Nora roared, launching a kick from her prone position before rolling backwards then launching herself forward with Magnhild in its polearm figuration. The added length this gave her attack allowed her to almost surprise Pyrrha. She was forced to redirect the blow with Milo which threw her slightly off-balance, unable to attack in turn.

Nora followed this up by collapsing Magnhild to its normal warhammer size, but instead of attacking by bringing it back the other way she lashed out with a kick. Pyrrha jumped backwards avoiding the blow then continued to dance around Nora, avoiding every attack but not launching her own attacks just yet, the fury of Nora's assault seemingly throwing her off her stride.

Watching from the sidelines Benzaiten felt one of her eyebrows rise in surprise. _That style of Pyrrha's truly is quite versatile. Though I wonder why she is maneuvering Nora like that instead of using her weapon to actually land strikes."_

"And what exactly is going on here?"

A voice speaking into her ear distracted Beni just then causing her to jump in surprise. Glynda sat directly behind her, staring down at her interrogatively. "Sifu! I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. Er, this is a team building exercise Nikos and Valkyrie came up with, I am uncertain why, but I think I can see the merits. I'm sorry, did I not fill out the paperwork for use of the arena correctly. "

"You did, I was however passing by and heard the explosions from Ms. Valkyrie's weapon." Standing up, Glynda moved to sit beside her protégé, humming thoughtfully as she watched the match. "Is there a reason however their teammates aren't here?"

While a slightly flushed Benzaiten began to explain the temporary disbanding of team JNPR, the P and the N of said team were approaching the climax of their match. Unknown to Nora, Pyrrha had maneuvered her so that Nora was side on to one of the small craters Nora's grenade's had made. When Nora's footing faltered, Pyrrha closed in with a speed she hadn't shown yet. Nora found her weapon knocked to one side and Akuo slashing at her chest with just enough power to push her Aura into the red.

"That's enough!" Benzaiten shouted, standing up reluctantly from where she had been sitting. "This match is over, Pyrrha wins."

"Tsk." Nora hissed, shaking her head. "Why can't you just stay still?"

"Because that's not how I fight." Pyrrha replied calmly, having figured out a lot about Nora's personality during the fight. _It isn't that she can't think in terms of surprises or angular combat, but that she doesn't often see the point._ "While I have a decent amount of Aura, why take hits when you don't have to? You're a fantastic fighter Nora, but you rely on your own offensive power too much. You need to learn some defense. That trick with the smoke was good. If you had been able to add some other element there, the surprise might well have let you win the match."

Nora grumbled, but brightened listening as Pyrrha went on, describing how the smoke had thrown Pyrrha off her game for a moment, and how she could have followed it up. The two of them walked out of the arena, talking about what other things Nora could put in her grenades rather than simple Dust, while Pyrrha also tried to teach Nora some tactics.

"Well, that was over quickly. Still, it seems to at least gotten them to start talking about the things they have in common. From there they will hopefully find more." Glynda said, smiling slightly before looking at Benzaiten. At the same time, her riding crop waved airily to the side, repairing the arena. "Now, how about some tea?"

Later Pyrrha and Nora went hunting out in the woods, putting to the test their new team tactics.

 **OOOOOOO**

At the same time Nora and Pyrrha were bonding through violence for the second time, Ranma, Ren and a disconsolate Jaune had just gotten back to the dormitories. "I've never lost in Dance Off Revolution before, never," Jaune moaned. "My pride as a dancer, no as a man, it's crumbling before my very eyes!"

Ranma laughed pushing his younger friend's shoulder lightly. "Come on man, it's not that big a deal."

"So says the one who has dethroned me!" Jaune retorted. "Ugh, and you said you'd never even played the game before!"

"Nope, I hadn't." Seeing Jaune still looking disconsolate Ranma sighed. "Jaune, who's the better artist: the one who makes the painting the first time, or the one who can copy it?"

"The one who made it for the first time of course." Jaune replied, while Ren stopped, looking at Ranma thoughtfully.

"Exactly. I'm martial artist. I make up moves, techniques, attacks on the fly or modify my enemies. That's what I do. I sure as heck couldn't do the same thing to a dance. I've seen you dance before, and you're actually better when not on that machine."

Jaune blushed at that, remembering that yes, Ranma had seen him dance during their time as students at Semaphore, but said nothing as Ranma went on. "I don't actually have much knowledge of dances, or songs. Oh, I suppose I've got a good understanding of rhythm, but what I really have are reflexes. I simply was able to follow the machines instructions faster than you were. That's why even though we were both perfect I was a bit faster than you."

"Okay, that does make me feel better. Still, I think I'm going to go see if Ruby and Weiss are up for some Clarion of War action to make me feel better." Jaune replied, clapping Ren on the shoulder. The two of them had bonded for several hours over various games, then talking about Nora and Jaune's sisters, movies, comics, and several other things in their time together. Both boys could have honestly said they were friends before this, but the day had certainly drawn them closer. "You want to come? I bet JN could school RW if we did."

"I'm not really in the mood for more games, sorry." Ren said, before turning to Ranma. "In fact, I'd like to ask you some questions about Aura manipulation. I think I can control my Aura enough to start learning that ki pocket trick of yours."

"We'll see. It takes a long while to master though, so don't feel discouraged if you don't get it right away." Mousse had apparently taken several years to first learn the hidden spaces technique, and then even more years building it up to the level he had. Ranma had taken months to reverse engineer it, and then weeks to build his ki space to where he wanted it, which for him was very slow indeed. In comparison coming up with his Moko Takabisha had taken a bare few days.

Ren nodded, and the three boys moved through the halls, stopping outside of team RWBY's room. Jaune knocked, and found Ruby inside, already dressed in her extremely cute, at least to Jaune's eyes, pajamas. Weiss was too, and she also looked incredibly cute. _Even if she does look even more out of place here than Ruby does, though I'd never say that out-loud._ Blake and Yang were nowhere to be seen.

"Hey Ranma, Ren, Jaune." Ruby said, smiling brightly at them, though it was obvious to all three boys she was still suffering from the hours upon hours of auditory torture that was vaguely disguised as punishment. "What's up?"

"I was wondering if you and Weiss were up for some Clarion of War. I've got all my homework done for the night, and I still feel the urge to destroy pixilated enemies."

"Oohh…" Ruby moaned, a sound that made Jaune flush slightly while Ranma and Ren simply smiled at the look of joy on her face. "You have no idea how awesome that sounds."

"Hmmm I suppose since we don't have anything due tomorrow, we can spend a few hours on less educational pursuits." Weiss smirked, throwing her pony tail over her shoulder with one hand. She and Ruby had found they enjoyed the same kind of FPS, and had then found that Jaune liked them to. While the blonde wasn't her favorite person, Jaune was a nice enough fellow, and a decent teammate in Clarion, which allowed them to use better tactics. "But are you sure you can handle it Arc?"

"Heh, bring it on Snow Princess." Jaune retorted, using Weiss's screenname in Clarion. "Our room is free I think, we can play in there if Blake's somewhere reading."

"Blake's gone somewhere to read, I think she found a new hiding place for when she wants some quite time. And Yang is hanging out with Coco in their room." Ruby said, gesturing Jaune in only to pause. "Oh, but you should go and put on your jammies first."

Jaune nodded, turning away as Ren and Ranma made their farewells. As they went, Ranma looked over at Ren. "Does he still wear that onesie?"

"Indeed, but to his credit there is a story behind it, and I think Ruby at the least actually likes it." Ren said with a faint smile.

The two of them went up to the dormitory rooftop, since Ranma preferred meditating under the nighttime sky. They were still there by the time Nora and Pyrrha came back.

Pyrrha found them there having come up to the rooftop to exercise further, still having some energy to burn. She had felt a noticeable increase in her endurance since arriving in Beacon and particularly since she started Ranma's training. For barely going on a month that was an impressive amount of progress.

The two boys were sitting cross-legged across from one another, their eyes closed as they meditated, but they looked up when Pyrrha came out onto the roof. Ren immediately stood up, looking at her expectantly. "Nora?"

"She's down in our room getting a bath." Pyrrha replied smiling happily at her teammate and teacher. "I think we ironed out the differences between us, I've learned to respect her flare for improvisation and the direct approach, Nora has learned that the direct approach is sometimes not the best, and to respect my abilities despite how different they are. Oh, she was also saying something about maybe raiding the cafeteria, though I am uncertain how serious she was about it."

"Nora hasn't had a pancake in a few hours, so I'd say she's as serious as it gets." With that Ren stood up, bowing slightly from the waist to Ranma. "Can we continue this another time Ranma?"

"Meh most of what I walked you through is stuff you can do on your own. Once you can feel your Aura moving through your body, come talk to me and we'll go on to the next step," Ranma replied.

Ren nodded and left the rooftop quickly, leaving Pyrrha and Ranma alone. "So, besides fighting one another what did you and Nora do?"

"How did…" Pyrrha began then laughed. "Were we really that obvious?"

"Meh, you're both combat junkies like me, so yeah it was easy to guess how ya'd get to know one another. Besides, you learn a lot about someone when you fight them." Ranma replied, winking at Pyrrha.

Laughing Pyrrha nodded. "Yes, I suppose you would know that better than most. And besides fighting one another we went hunting out on the woods. I think we did very well together. After tomorrow I don't think my team will have any more conflict between us."

 _Though I have to wonder given how quickly he left, is Ren as dependent on Nora as she is on him? Hehehe, I also wonder which one of them will be the one to decide they need to stop being not together-together and get rid of the 'not' part of that saying._

Ranma's next question jolted Pyrrha out of her thoughts. "So, were you up here to exercise?"

"Oh yes. Although, if you wouldn't mind we could start training me on using my Aura reserves. I'd like to start training on the cloth weapon technique." Then she smiled, staring out over Beacon as she watched the Sun setting in the distance. "So beautiful…"

Ranma gulped through a suddenly tight throat as he looked at Pyrrha, standing there majestic in her armor, her red hair flickering in the breeze, the light of the sunset to one side gleaming off her armor. "Yeah, beautiful."

Something in his voice must have given him away because Pyrrha turned, her face flushing slightly and Ranma whipped his neck around to look out towards the sun, coughing into his hand. "So, um, let's see if you have enough control to start learning how to manipulate your aura…"

 **OOOOOOO**

Adam Taurus was a tall man with the build of a swordsman: broad shoulders and heavily muscled upper body with a quick looking frame. He had red hair, out of which two black horns showed his Faunus heritage. Adam also always wore the white half-mask that was his personal version of the normal White Fang Grimm mask. He was a powerful man, well-respected, even feared by the White Fang, one of their chief lieutenants and easily one of their best fighters.

The fact he was looking at Cinder with barely repressed rage and fear in his eyes made Cinder smile. It was a heady feeling, showing people like this that strength alone was not enough, or their strength was not up to the task perhaps. Still, allowances had to be made for the idiocy of such people.

That was why she didn't sear or otherwise cut Adam's head off when he pulled his sword, Wilt and Blush out of their sheaves as he glared at her. "I am **done** with this! You and your faction, whatever it is, cannot dictate White Fang policy! Sending 40 of my men to work with that human bastard Torchwick was bad enough, but now you dare to tell me what targets I can and cannot pursue! You go too far you human bitch!" With that he raised Wilt's point until it was aimed directly between Cinder's eyes.

 _Ah so it is that I'm a woman that bothers him at least in part as well as being a human, Emerald was spot on there._ "My dear Adam," Cinder said smiling seductively sitting slightly forward in her chair in the tiny office where they were meeting. It was Adam's office here in this small White Fang outpost but that hadn't stopped her from taking it over upon her arrival. "Why the hostility? And please don't wave your sword about like that. Someone could get hurt."

With that she raised a gentle hand, touching the tip of the sword pointing between her eyes. Almost immediately the metal began to glow with heat and as she brought up another finger to clasp the blade between them, the heat intensified.

Adam gritted his teeth, only holding onto the hilt of his sword thanks to his specially insulated gloves. But even so he could feel the heat, and it was slowly ratcheting higher as Cinder looked at him. Adam knew he could do one of two things. Back away, bear his throat to this woman, this **human woman** again, or attack her.

In which case he might live, because Adam was useful to her and he knew it, but many of his people here would die if they became involved. Cinder had proven that the last time they had met: she had single-handedly carved through over a dozen White Fang members, and then brought him to his knees. The woman was at truly deadly combatant, fast, powerful, and her fire Semblance made her utterly terrifying. As evidenced by the fact that his sword was now glowing white, and his insulated glove was sizzling at the heat.

With an oath Adam pulled Wilt out of her reach, grunting and letting it fall to the floor for a moment. Luckily the heat hadn't quite gotten to the point where it would've been warping the metal, but it had been close.

"That's better," Cinder said brightly, leaning back now in her chair and crossing her legs somewhat coquettishly. In the dress she wore that put those legs on display, her skin, pale white yet vibrant with good health, glowing in the light of the office. "Now that your posturing is dealt with, perhaps we can get down to business. Why exactly are you unhappy with our arrangement at him? Through my devices you have access to the latest Atlas technology. Your White Fang is better armed and better organized than it has ever been before. You'll soon even have the latest robotic technology, the new Paladins."

She waved a hand regally, both gesturing towards a chair and as emphasis. "And for all that, all we ask in return is that you help in our various enterprises. Assist Torchwick in his efforts to steal all the dust in Vale, aid us in closing Vale to dust shipments. The rewards for working with us are quite high especially in the long term, are they not?"

Adam gritted his teeth. "That's not all you're asking!" He retorted sharply, even as he sat down, glaring across the desk hatefully at her. "You're demanding that we not go after targets of opportunity, you're demanding that we stop our demonstration attacks in both Vale and the other three countries. Vacuo I'll willingly back away from. But Atlas? Where Faunus are treated openly like slaves in certain communities? **No!** I will not back off from that nor from the attacks here in Vale."

"And I don't want you to, as you would know if you had let me finish speaking before attempting to threaten me. Your attacks in Atlas serve a purpose, they pull valuable human troops away from any kind of quick response force that Ironwood could come up with, forcing him to utilize more and more of his robotic soldiers instead." Cinder smiled, though there was no humor in the expression. "For which we have a unique solution in the future."

"However the attacks here in Vale come too close to comfort to our long-term operations. We want the public's mind concentrated on Torchwick and his possible alliance with your men in the future. Not yet, not openly. We want this confusion also centered in one place," Cinder spoke, emphasizing the words as if she was talking to a child. "Here in the city of Vale, not spread out across the countryside of Vale. You are free to act however you wish in the other three countries, but here, we need that fear and apprehension **concentrated**."

Adam frowned, one hand rising to touch his mask for a moment. Cinder idly wondered if he ever took it off. Cinder had seen a picture of Adam as a young 12-year-old boy, and he had been quite handsome, but to the best of her knowledge, and given the agents she and her mistress had throughout the White Fang her information was quite good, Adam had never taken off that mask since the moment he had put it on.

 _I doubt he really needs the mask any longer, certainly not to hide from himself anyway. Adam might not realize it, but the monster he is portrayed to the world became the reality years ago,_ Cinder thought shaking her head internally at the idea. To become that which you had so fought against was a delicious irony, but one that she refused to fall to in her own case.

"All right," he muttered, shaking his head. "I understand your point, and your long-term plans as far as I know make sense. However, I can't go along with them entirely."

He held up a hand as Cinder made to speak. "Not won't, can't. This target in particular is too good, too important, and too visible. Winchester's basically calling us out, daring us to attack. We can't ignore the opportunity without losing face both in the public eye and among ourselves, certainly among unaligned Faunus."

"That's a point," Cinder said, tapping her lips thoughtfully, an affectation that drew Adam's eyes for a moment as her own narrowed, considering angles. "…There is going to be a slight window. I don't want your men and women running afoul of my other associates, which are also going to be making a play for the train."

Adam shivered a little at that. Even he could feel the subtle wrongness of working with the Grimm, and Cinder knew it. She felt it too of course, but to reach her goals Cinder would willingly work with anyone, even Salem and her Grimm. _But who my dear is the one in the driver's seat there?_

Shaking that though off as she normally did when it came to her Cinder went on. "We'll have to be careful to make certain that doesn't happen. But there will be a brief window, possibly directly in Eastport. Would that not suit your purposes better? There would be a multitude of witnesses in that event."

"Perhaps," Adam said, his own tone much calmer now that Cinder had agreed with him that he needed to keep face with his people. "I'll look into it. Right before or a day's journey from Eastport would be better."

"That too is doable I think." Cinder abruptly stood up, keeping her lips from twitching at Adam's sudden flinch with the ease of long practice. "Very well, we'll assume that will be a good window. I'll get in touch with you if that changes, but for now start planning for that event. Oh and do keep supplying Roman with more of your men. He'll need the manpower and your men need to learn the arts of theft and showmanship."

"If only the man wasn't such an unmitigated asshole!" Adam said standing up as well. He opened the door courteously for Cinder only realizing he had done it a second later, and gritted his teeth as the woman smiled politely at him for the courtesy.

"He is, but he's a useful one. We will continue to use him as long as possible, never hinting at the fact that he is a very small time piece in this game. And if he gives you any lip personally Adam, feel free to make your displeasure known to him."

That would actually be an interesting fight Cinder reflected, Adam versus Roman and possibly Neo. She didn't think the large bull Faunus would win that match up, certainly not if Neo was involved, but she could be wrong there, and it would certainly be fun to watch.

"Good!" Adams said nodding. "In that case our business is concluded. You know where the doors are."

With that he quickly stepped back into his office and slammed the door. Cinder smiled at the foolish power-play, but let it slide, sashaying through the warehouse, feeling the eyes of the White Fang members on her. _I wonder if Adam is intelligent enough to realize that Roman is not the only tool here, in more meanings of the word than one._ She thought to herself in amusement. _Though I suppose Adam might think of me in the same manner. More fool him then, there is only one player here._

 **OOOOOOO**

The next morning, Yang knocked on Ranma's door, which he answered quickly, already dressed for the day. Internally snapping her fingers at a missed opportunity, Yang smiled at him. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah, but could I ask you to help again with the obstacle course first?"

"You just want to see me tied up again, or dirty anyway," Yang said, teasingly crossing her arms under her chest, further highlighting her bust. Ranma rolled his eyes, but she saw his gaze flash down to her cleavage for just a moment, and counted that as a win. "But what did you need my help for?"

"Just general repairs. I've also got a few more portable speakers to add, and several more traps and pictures., stuff like that." Ranma moved past Yang and down the hall, opting not to go the window route today.

Yang frowned in puzzlement as she followed Ranma. "Did one of the other teams damage the course somehow?"

"Nah, some Grimm got into it last night. We might have to do a bit of a culling again so they don't bother us in the future. Young Grimm are stupid as hell, so they don't learn."

"Heh, well I'm all up for making certain they don't get any older," Yang said, slamming one fist into her other palm, Ember Celica gleaming in the morning light as they exited the dorms.

"Thought you would be," Ranma said with a chuckle. Then he looked closely at Yang's face. "Did you get enough sleep, you look kind of… well less than your normal perky self."

Yang rolled her eyes. "I am sleeping fine once I can get to sleep anyway. Ruby however is having a bit of an issue."

Ranma winced. "Issues caused by her punishment?"

"Yep," Yang replied turning to look back the way they had come towards the window that she knew was her dorm rooms. "I don't know if Ozpin understood how that would affect Ruby. She's been mumbling about no more singing and no Nora put the hammer down, and other things of that nature the past two nights."

"Look at the bright side," Ranma said with a shrug "she's almost done isn't she?"

"She should finish tomorrow afternoon." Yang supplied with a nod. "That is if Nora doesn't crack."

"That's true she was punished too, forgot about that. Maybe we should have taken it more easily on your teams during class."

"I think our team handled it very well anyway," Yang said happily, once more turning to look back over their shoulders. "My little sister's always thinking ahead, and she's come up with dozens of different partner combat techniques and moves."

Ranma nodded, smiling at her. "Proud?"

"You bet I am!" Yang exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air. "I mean I've always known my little sister's cool, but I didn't think she'd be this good at being a leader. With Weiss doing the whole, what'd she call it last night 'logistical planning and strategic oversight', Yang said, trying to actually imitate Weiss's voice and failing horribly, "she's become a great leader. And the two of them together are a fun… team."

"You're about to say something different than team there but whatever," Ranma said, starting to run forwards towards the forest. "Come on, the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can get to sparring."

Yang ran after him, thinking about her sister and Weiss, though her thoughts weren't actually about how good a team they were. _If I'm not mistaken, my little sister might have a bit of a crush on her partner. Either her or Jauney-boy, one of the two. Not certain, but it will be fun to tease her about Weiss-cream. As for Jaune, well, he is sort of adorkable, so I guess they could be a good match. Not that I'm going to let either of them know I approve of them if they do get together. Although if she likes them both, that would just be weird, since I don't think Weiss can even stand Jaune._

The two of them spent about 40 minutes repairing the damage the green had done to the obstacle course, during which they dealt with a single pack of Beowolves, and several dozen Creeps. A single Ursa wandered into the course as they were finishing up, its last sight Ranma's shield coming in at head height.

After that, Ranma and Yang went back to the school and found one of the open areas. There they stood across from one another while Yang took a stance. She began to circle Ranma who moved with her, not taking a stance himself. "So is that a real a martial arts stance you got, or is it just another way of trying to piss your opponents off so they make a mistake?"

"A little of both," Ranma said with a laugh, and Yang moved in quickly, trying to take him by surprise.

Ranma however wasn't surprised, and he set swiftly took a single step back letting her first roundhouse pass through where he had been standing, before helping it along with one hand, and lashing out with a punch to her jaw with the other. She blocked that, and the fight was on, the two of them quickly settling into a series of exchanges.

"You still aren't using enough kicks," Ranma said, lashing out with his own kick towards her feet. This forced Yang into the air, and he pivoted swiftly, bringing up his other leg in a roundhouse that she barely got her arms in front of. It blew her sideways through the air, but she rolled, landed easily and launched herself forward, closing in before Ranma could possibly set himself. But he did, and he used her own momentum against her, directing her blow downwards with both hands and flipping over her head.

She turned however and lashed out with a kick of her own. This forced Ranma to backpedal despite the fact that he was able to block it. "You just want to see more of my legs!"

"While that is a bonus, boxing and offensive hard styles are little too predictable," Ranma said. "You need some kickboxing at least, and a bit of Muy Thai to aid to your Judo."

With that Ranma blocked another blow, directing it upwards this time before hammering her chest with a one-two combo. She caught his arm o however and held him still, lashing out with her other hand three times. He blocked all those blows until Yang reared back and tried to kick him between the legs. "Hey!"

"I'd help you put ice on it," Yang said innocently. "Are you worried about shrinkage?"

"Not even going to go there!" Ranma said, fully in the combat zone and not reacting overmuch to her flirting, only returning it as if it was another type of smack talk.

 _Just like back when we first met,_ Yang thought. _Once Ranma settles into a combat mode, he doesn't react as innocently. That makes it fun, but also really frustrating when he returns to type._

Still, that exchange had given Yang an idea. While her speed was nowhere near Ranma's if he was serious, her strength was much closer, and Ranma didn't seem as good against grappling attacks as he was against straight on blows.

With that in mind, she tried to go for a grapple several times. But Ranma was wise to what she was doing, and blocked or evaded them all.

As Yang began to sweat, she decided to go back to flirting in an effort to try and rattle him while still trying for a grapple. "You know, most boys would kill to be in this position, getting all hot and sweaty with me."

"Until they learned exactly how you accumulated all that sweat," Ranma replied dryly. "Most boys I've found don't like girls who can cave in their heads on a first date. Little intimidating for most."

"You've been hanging around your sister too long, it's starting to affect your vocabulary." Yang grumped.

"Just because I was raised in the boondocks doesn't mean I'm a hick Yang," Ranma said mildly. "I would've thought that being from Patch you wouldn't go there."

"That wasn't what I meant at all and you know it," Yang replied primly. "But come on, accumulated?"

"All right I'll give you that."

For a few seconds they were silent, each of them now concentrating on trying to find a way through the others defenses. After a time Yang decided to be a bit sneaky. She suddenly stumbled, between one step in the next, making it look as if her ankle had just gone out from under her. Ranma quickly caught her, but then was surprised when she smiled up at him wrapping her arms around his and said "Gotcha!"

With that she threw them both to the ground in such a way that she remained on top. She raised her fist and thrust downwards, but Ranma grabbed it, pulling her to one side and rolling with her. He was trying to get away, but Yang it was having none of it, one hand grabbing at his shirt making it clear that Ranma wasn't going to get away without either ripping said shirt.

The two of them rolled around on the ground for a moment, but Ranma eventually was able to use his better understanding of leverage to pin Yang underneath him. She grabbed him around the waist with her legs, holding him there, as the two of them grappled with their hands straining against one another in a pure contest of strength.

For a moment they were in a stalemate and then Yang suddenly became aware of their current position. "Well now isn't this an interesting position to find ourselves in." she murmured, her heartbeat racing for an entirely different reason.

Ranma grunted, then looked down and slowly realized what it looked as if they were doing. He began to blush, and Yang quickly pulled him to one side, rolling. Then she was on top of him before he could regain control of himself. A fist tapped gently against Ranma's forehead and then Yang leaned back laughing and throwing her arms up in the sky. "I win!"

"That was cheating!" Ranma spluttered.

Yang looked down, hopping slightly where she was sitting on his waist, feeling the rising reaction from below. "I don't know," she said breathily, leaning forward. Her chest pressed down into Ranma's and their faces were no barely separated by an inch. "Isn't there a phrase that goes all's fair in love and war?"

Blushing again Ranma tried to control his beating heart but he didn't back away, even though a part of him wanted to. "You, um, you're extending that concept to include flirting I take it?"

"Flirting **is** love Ranma, or the precursor to it anyway," Yang said, leaning her head even further forward to touch foreheads with him. They stared at one another, and Yang was about to duck her head slightly to one side when Yang's scroll went off, informing her it was time to head back for a shower if she wanted to have one before class time.

Sighing she stood up, and Ranma quickly joined her. "We'll continue this another day," Yang teased with a wink.

Ranma remained there for a moment watching her go. A part of him really did enjoy Yang's flirting, he was a guy dammit! But he had also sort of enjoyed Shampoo's flirting, even if he never allowed himself to react to her like he did to Yang. And then been no chance in hell of Ranma ever allowing things to go beyond her trying to feel him up. Ranma hadn't liked Shampoo's personality enough to see any kind of future between them, and given the various demands of honor on him there could never be anything short term.

SO he liked Yang, but she was just so in his face about it.

And besides Yang's family and Ranma his own past they hadn't actually talked about anything deep. Every conversation seemed to be two-thirds flirting, one third communication. Even when it came to her family they hadn't talked very often. Ranma didn't know if what he was looking for in a relationship, but he did want a **relationship** , not just a physical one."

There was also the whole teacher-student thing to think about, not that Ranma really took that seriously. Yes he was her teacher, but he wasn't that much older than them so that didn't matter much. Still, the lack of real communication between them did sort of matter to Ranma, and he still hadn't really decided if what he was feeling for Yang went beyond physical attraction and some friendship thrown in.

Sighing, Ranma set those thoughts once more on the back burner and followed Yang back towards the dormitories.

For Ranma, the rest of that day was actually uneventful until around seven at night. His class continued to be a major hit with the freshmen, and none of them were stupid enough to do anything but taking it as seriously as they had to. At that point however, he became caught up in a bit of an event that had begun about an hour before…

Jaune and Nora had sparred after class ended. Their match basically pitted unstoppable force against unbreakable wall. Jaune took Nora's best shots and survived them, if barely, but couldn't tag her in turn enough to put her down. Eventually the ten minutes elapsed and both of them were still on their feet.

"There's, hah, there's a lesson here for both of us." Jaune said. "We all bring something to the team. We all have roles that we are best at, which mesh with everyone else's." Nora looked over at him, still looking fresh despite the fact her Aura bar was actually a little lower than his on the screen, and Jaune went on. "We couldn't survive without your firepower. We couldn't' survive without Ren's speed, my durability or Pyrrha's adaptability. Even if we switch partners we are still all members of the same team, and you need to respect Pyrrha and I, trust us to watch your back, just as much as you do Ren."

Nora nodded, understanding his point. Having come to respect Jaune and Pyrrha long before this, Nora actually hadn't needed to fight them to respect them as Jaune's initial words implied. But to trust them, and to see that their way of fighting each had their own place that she had needed this for.

"Now, let's hit the showers, and then we can go into Vale. I think I found something you'll really like." Nora blinked at him, and Jaune grinned. "There's a petting zoo in Vale. And guest starring there this month are a family of sloths."

Nora's squeal of delight practically deafened him, and it was only the fact she couldn't fly and they had to wait for a Bullhead to be ready to take them that Jaune was able to get her to take a shower first. The trip to the zoo went off without a hitch, fueled by both Nora's love of sloths, and his question of "so, why do you like sloths so much?"

Yet after that, Jaune made the mistake of asking Nora if there was anything else she wanted to do. He had decided on waiting on Ranma's idea until the whole team could enjoy it, but his prior planning of course didn't mean he knew everything there was to do for fun in Vale. But Nora's plan was one Jaune could happily have done without. Her mastery of the puppy doe eyes however was aided by a grip he couldn't get out of.

So it was that Jaune found himself walking down the streets of one of Vale's worst areas. But he wasn't just walking down the street looking as innocent as Jaune Arc could look, which on its own was quite innocent. NO, he was walking down the street in an outfit that was the equivalent of a neon sign screaming 'mug me!'

Thus Jaune was in no way surprised to find himself grabbed from behind and dragged into an alleyway. "Alright gorgeous just let me have the bag and maybe I'll let ya go after… what the?"

Rolling his eyes Jaune turned in the other man's grip. He watched as the man began to look both shocked and disgusted, then they both had a brief instant to turn their attention upwards as a faint whistling sound came to their ears. Jaune watched the man's face turn from shocked to fearful and horrified. Then Nora came down on top of the would-be mugger feet first, driving the man into the ground. Since he didn't have Aura that was more than enough to knock him out.

"Hehehe, I'm loving this!" Nora said heaving the man up and rifling through his pockets. "The picking's not that great, but the look on their faces is hilarious." In one hand she held out her scroll, having recorded her fall. The noise the scroll made as Nora fell was the source of the whistling, which she thought was just a bonus.

"you know for some reason I had thought that you would be the one playing bait. Call me silly if you want, but I did." Jaune said, readjusting the dress he was currently wearing. A pushup bra that was filled with paper and a blond wig completed the ensemble.

"Well Silly I have no idea why you'd think that." Nora said, then lifted her scroll up and took a picture. "You do clean up well though Silly."

"Ugh. Come on, let's get out of here so I can change. I trust by this point you've got enough money for your emergency pancake fund?" Jaune asked.

"Yep. Now come on Silly, I saw a decent park about twelve blocks away. It should have a restroom where you can turn back into Jaune." Nora giggled again before turning and leaping up into the rooftops.

This was why Jaune was once more in team RWBY's room trying to regain his lost masculinity when someone knocked on the door. Today he, Yang and Ruby were the only one's there. Pyrrha had gone to talk to Glynda about what she would be doing tomorrow during the freshman class's one on one combat class, and Ren and Nora were doing some homework Nora was supposed to have finished for Friday. Blake and Weiss had decided to get a jump on their next history project, though they hadn't even attempted to get their respective partners to join them.

Yang was busy looking up something on her scroll, hair styles by what little Jaune had seen. Ruby on the other hand was nearly giddy with delight and murderous energy, having finished her and Nora's punishment that afternoon. She eagerly accepted Jaune's request (plea). The two of them were now shooting their way through hordes of Grimmlins, the pixilated horrific amalgamation of human and man created by an Atlasian military experiment gone wrong, unable to stop the assault of Red Reaper and Blondish Knight.

Neither of them even looked up from the TV as someone wrapped on the door. Yang grumbled somewhat, but sighing she set her scroll down and moved to the door. "Yo, wh… DAD!?"

In the doorway stood Taiyang Long, the father of Ruby and Yang. He was a decently tall man towering over yang by a few inches, and shared her build as well. He was a handsome fellow, as evidenced by several blushing students that he had left in his wake during his walk through Beacon, with tanned skin, light violet eyes a shade lighter than Yang's and blonde hair. An easy grin completed the image, and he pulled Yang into a hug, lifting her off the ground easily. "Yang!"

Then they were both hit by a speeding missile as Ruby crossed the intervening distance, clambering up her father until she was wrapped around his shoulders like a monkey, hugging him tightly. "Daddy, oh-my-gosh it feels like ages since we saw you in person, soooo much has happened since we left Patch!"

"What are you doing here?" Yang asked, pushing back against him for a moment and staring up at him brightly.

"What, you didn't think I'd stop by as soon as I could after Waypoint? Talking to you over the scroll is one thing, seeing you in person is much better."

"It really great to see you dad!" Ruby said as Yang rolled her eyes at their father's protectiveness. Ruby hopped off his shoulders, pulling him further into the room. "I wish the others were here, I'd love to introduce you to our partners, but they're both out doing their own thing right now."

"Their own thing no doubt being something scholastic I assume," their father teased, ruffling Ruby's hair affectionately, though his eyes had gone straight over to the young blonde-haired boy sitting in front of the TV with the controller. "And who's this?"

As Taiyang looked at him, Jaune suddenly felt that he was under the eyes of a predator. He stiffened visibly, and his voice came out in the stutter. "I, I'm Jaune Arc sir, erm… leader of team JNPR, sir."

"Arc," the Taiyang muttered, nodding slightly. "Think I know the name. From Vacuo, right?" Jaune nodded, and Taiyang's eyes narrowed noticeably. "And what exactly are you doing in my daughter's room?"

Daaad!" Ruby moaned, while Yang began laughing, hopping back over to her bed and watching in amusement. "He's just a friend. We were playing Clarion of War, I really, really needed to kill things!"

"Well that's all right I suppose," Taiyang said slowly, his eyes never leaving Jaune's face. "However I'd feel better if my daughter's weren't alone in the same room with a boy."

"Ooh, both of us at once, really you think this adorkable good would be up for that?" Yang teased, rolling her eyes again. "Come on dad."

"I suppose you're right sunshine. It's nice to meet you Jaune," Taiyang held out his hand, and Jaune shook it only to grunt as Taiyang tried to crush his hand. Aura helped somewhat, but only in keeping the actual grip from doing damage, not from the pain of it or the grinding of his finger bones. "And if you do have designs on my precious baby, rethink them now. It would be safer all around, understood?"

Jaune winced, but in a moment of pure insanity asked, "Um, sir, isn't that your daughter's choice, not yours?"

"Wrong answer," Taiyang said, his eyes going a little red as his Semblance, which Yang had inherited from him while in the background Yang had collapsed back onto her bed howling with laughter as Ruby blushed to almost match namesake.

Jaune was saved by the bell almost literally as someone knocked on the door to team RWBY's room. "It's open," Ruby squeaked, desperate for anything that could save her from her embarrassing parent, oh and Jaune too she supposed.

Ranma opened the door, nodding to them all band looking at Taiyang thoughtfully for a moment before he looked at Ruby. "Hey Ruby, just stopping by to make sure that you're free this Saturday."

Yang gulped, cursing Ranma for his poor choice of words, but Ruby answered cheerfully in the affirmative before Taiyang stepped between them. "And what exactly is your interest in my precious baby?!"

"You're their father huh? Yeah I can see the resemblance, though I thought at first you might be related to Jaune." Ranma said, shrugging his shoulders even as his instincts told him he was in danger. His arms fell to his sides but other than that there was nothing to tell anyone he was now ready for action. "Anyway Ruby I wanted to make sure you were free so we could start training you in pushing out your aura into your cloak. You said you were interested in that right?"

"Oh yeah!" Ruby said hopping to her feet and grinning at the perfect distraction Ranma had just come up with. "Hey dad, check this out. She whirled over to her sister, pulling her scarf off and then zoomed around Taiyang, holding out Yang's scarf to Ranma. "Show him what you showed us."

Rolling his eyes Ranma did so, flipping the scarf out, only for Taiyang to watch as it solidified. And was that an edge he could see on it?

"It's an Aura trick, anyone can learn it so long as they have enough control over their Aura. Ren might be able to do it by the end of next week, and then I think we'll be able to start on other things." Ranma supplied to the three students.

Taiyang nodded thoughtfully staring at it. "You want to use it on your cloak I presume Ruby. But who are you young man?"

"Ranma Saotome, one of the teachers here."" Ranma supplied.

"I meant what are you to my daughters?" Taiyang growled, trying to loom over the shorter Ranma.

"Ruby? Her teacher and friend," Ranma said still not understanding why this man was trying to threaten him. _Hmm… do I want to try and get this guy to fight me? Nah, still have to do the paperwork from today's class, and Glynda'd probably string me up by my toenails if I deliberately tried to avoid doing it._

Glancing at his older daughter and the way she was looking at the pigtailed boy, Taiyang said slowly "and what about my precious sunshine?"

Yang began to blush, and Ranma pulled at his pigtail. "Um…undecided, maybe?"

Taiyang narrowed his eyes angrily, but a part of him noticed that the boy wasn't backing down, and there seemed to be no fear in his eyes. If anything there was… is that anticipation? _He might be a teacher, but there's no way he could think he could fight an experienced hunter like me with Aura tricks._ Taiyang had stopped watching the news about Waypoint before the 'Azure Warden's' part in it had begun to be publicized.

"Anyway" Ruby said brightly, clapping her hands and grabbing her father's hand pulling him back toward the door. "Let me show you around. I'm sure Beacon's changed a bit since you were here so long ago."

"Ouch princess that hurts," Taiyang said. He allowed his youngest daughter to pull him out of the room but not before mouthing at the two boys 'I'll be watching you' holding up two fingers to his eyes and then thrusting them out towards the boys.

"…So that's your father, kind of protective isn't he?" Jaune asked, breathing a sigh of relief.

Ranma nodded to looking over at Yang. "Empty nest syndrome maybe?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Yang groaned, falling back on her bed.

 **OOOOOOO**

Friday was a rainy day, which found Pyrrha and Yang, as the two freshmen who had the least to learn from one on one combat, skipping that class to check out their cleaned and refurbished weapons. Professor Goodwitch had decided to excuse Pyrrha all one on one classes in lieu of training with Benzaiten and Yang after class. Unfortunately this was both for their good and the good of the rest of the class: none of the other freshman could really challenge the two of them in one on one combat, the closest who could was Ruby, whose potential was even higher than theirs, but she wasn't quite there yet.

Their styles also were not exactly helpful for the other freshmen to face. Yang was an Aura beast even more so than Jaune thanks to her Semblance. She would just grind anyone but Pyrrha down regardless of their skills. So while interesting, she didn't really learn a lot facing the other freshmen save for Pyrrha herself, and even there she didn't learn much. And Pyrrha was a champion, her skills were head and shoulders above most students in the school, let alone the other freshmen. So for both their own education and the morale of the rest of the class (save their teammates) excusing them from three out of every four Friday classes was simply good sense.

Pyrrha was a little anxious about it, since this was the first time someone other than Pyrrha or her aunt had worked on them. But as she put Akuo through its paces she smiled happily, actually laughing aloud. "If we ever get the chance Yang, I want to introduce Ruby to my aunt. Your little sister has a real talent for weapons. Akuo feels like new, and the shifting is even better than I was able to get it."

"What can I say, my sister's awesome." Yang said, buffing her knuckles down her chest, Ember Celica once more gleaming on her forearms where they should be. Unlike Pyrrha she hadn't been surprised by the quality of the maintenance done on her weapon, or even how Ruby had repaired one of Celica's gears, which had broken during the fighting in Waypoint. "Comes from who raised her young know."

The two girls giggled, then stopped and turned to the door as Forge Master Reginald chuckled behind them. "You think the cleaning and repairing she did on your weapons are something, you should see what she began working on after she finished your weapon Nikos."

"I thought Pyrrha's were the last weapons Ruby and Nora had to work on. Unless, did Nora somehow mess up Lotus Flower?" Yang asked, snorting after saying the name of Ren's weapons. _Seriously, could they be any girlier?_

"Yeah, and she finished it in record time. No, all the weapons are done. This was something new for that young brat Ranma." Reginald said, gesturing the two to follow her.

They did so, looking at one another for a moment before Yang asked. "What'd Ranma do to get on your bad side?" _It says something that I don't doubt that he did do something, I'm only wondering if it was funny._

"Oh nothing, just shattered several of my best fist type weapons by practicing last night. Freaking asshole and his sister practiced together last night, and his… his freaking fists shattered them!" the Forge Master groused. "What the hell is he even made of, there's a limit to what Aura can do. Even fucking Port and Brutus couldn't do that."

Yang winced, realizing Ranma had probably used that speed technique of his the same one he wanted to eventually teach Ruby, once she had figured out how to use her Semblance on her hands. _So it wasn't any one impact, but hundreds. Painful as fuck to be on receiving end of it._ "That's uh, yeah sorry to hear that. But what does that have to do with what my little… oh, she was working on one of his weapons?"

"Yeah. She worked on that lance design of hers. Damn fine work," Reginald replied, still sounding grumpy but slightly more like it was his normal tone of voice than something personal.

A moment later they stood around a work area where the lance lay. It was about four feet long from tip to pommel. The lance head itself went back from the tip to the rest save for around six inches, the point wickedly sharp looking and the flange wide enough to protect the forearm and some of the upper arm.

When Yang looked inside, she saw not one but two different triggers. One was slightly further down in the flange, or rather higher up towards the tip. The other was right inside the flange and it looked like it was also the sight of a small mech-form piece.

Reginald nodded to it, and when she spoke confirmed Yang's guess. "That's the rifle trigger, the grip comes out from the stock, and the pommel separates to provide a shoulder stock. It's a darn good piece. The forward trigger, the one that'd be used if the wielder was in close combat, is linked to the Fire Dust dispenser, which can heat up the tip something fierce or be used to power a short range flamethrower."

"Ooooh," Pyrrha and Yang murmured, leaning down to inspect the work and almost smacking their heads together before pulling back, laughing as the Forge Master chuckled.

"Is that the lance?" Ranma said, entering the room just then. The two young girls turned, then stopped, staring. Pyrrha began to blush brightly while Yang's eyes widened, a grin appearing on her face as she licked her lips lightly.

Ranma and Benzaiten both stood there, and it was evident they had just come in from the rain. Benzaiten's long red hair was stuck to her neck and back still, and her clothing slightly rumpled. The two girls barely registered Benzaiten's presences at all however as they tried not to stare at Ranma. His hair was only slightly damp but his shirt, one of his silk ones, clung to him like a second skin, as did his pants. Where Benzaiten looked as if she had only been slightly rained upon, he looked soaked, yet he still wore a bright, merry grin on his face as he moved toward the table. One word went through both girls' minds, which was _Yum!_

He hefted the weapon nodding appreciatively at its weight, which was about the same as the umbrella Ryoga was using when he first showed up in Nerima. It would have a decent heft to it, but nowhere near enough weight to bother Ranma. He moved quickly, first slicing the lance to one side, then back swiftly, thrusting it forward before bringing up his other hand and using it like a spear for a few katas, before he nodded, not noticing the blushing Pyrrha or the leering Yang, though Benzaiten had, and was looking at them, amusement plane on her face. "I'd have ta test out the rifle and flamethrower, but everything else looks good."

"I'll tell Ruby ya said that hot-stuff," Yang said, before pulling the same towel she had used when she first arrived in the armory from her shoulders, moving forward. "For now, let's do what we can to get you dry. A better idea would be to get you out of those wet clothes..."

"Um, nah I, er, I'm good," Ranma said, backing away while Pyrrha looked on, her jade eyes narrowing as her blush began to disappear. "Besides, it's still pouring out, we'd just have to go back out into it again."

At that moment Ozpin's voice echoed out over the Beacon Address system. "Team JNPR, team RWBY, Professor Ranma Saotome report to the headmaster office, please."

"I didn't do it," Ranma and Yang said together, causing Pyrrha to giggle madly for a moment.

Rolling her eyes Benzaiten ushered the other three out of the room. "Regardless let us see what the wonderful wizard of Beacon wants with you."

"You don't have to come with us Beni, the call only mentioned me." Ranma said.

"Perhaps, but I would still like to be a part of whatever discussion this is going to entail. Besides, if Sifu isn't there she might need a report on the meeting for after." Beni retorted, before noticing the two girls' quizzical expressions. "Ah, Ozpin might sign the checks, but Professor Goodwitch is the one really in charge around here."

Both girls nodded at that, easily seeing how that could be. Then as they were stepping out into the rain, Yang smirked, poking Ranma in the ribs with her elbow. "So, you haven't done it?"

"Nope, can't remember doing anything that'd get Ozzy to call me in let alone you and your teams." Ranma replied.

Scowling now Yang realized she'd have to put in a bit more effort to get this joke right. "That's not what I meant. I meant, have you not done it, yet, you know, it?"

At Ranma's blank look and catching Benzaiten looking at her Yang shook her head, her hair already feeling damp darn it. "Nevermind…"

Shrugging his shoulders Ranma grinned, tapping Yang on the shoulder. "Tag!" With that he raced on, leaving the others in the dust followed by a laughing and quickly soaking Pyrrha with Yang on their heels.

By the time they arrived at the clock tower all of them were soaked to the bone. But they weren't the only ones. The rest of the two freshman teams were also soaked by the downpour, with Blake in particular looking miserable, the quintessential wet cat.

"We need to invest in umbrellas post haste!" Weiss growled, wringing out her silver hair.

Ruby giggled from beside her partner, pulling down her hood revealing that her face was actually dry. "Or you could all start wearing hoods like mine~."

"Hush small person," Yang muttered, looking at her wet hair with despair writ large on her features. "Ugh, it's going to take forever to get this dry!"

As the other girls commiserated with the blonde bomber, Ranma and the two boys all looked away, trying not to notice what the water had down to the normal school uniform. The skirts were normally somewhere between cute and sexy, now they had gone well past sexy into risqué.

Coughing and still looking away Ranma led the younger teens into the elevator while trying to keep as far away from Blake as possible. When they entered Ranma moved to the far side of the room away from the doorway but as he looked at Ozpin he was immediately stuck by how tired and weary Ozpin looked. He nodded at them all, taking a long swig of his coffee and Ranma wondered for a moment if he had added a little pick me up to it. "Yo Ozzy, ya called us."

"Indeed, I did. First of all Ranma, know that I tried to convince the council against this. I think you are doing a magnificent job training the freshman class, and I have no desire to remove you from that task." Ozpin began, sighing and setting his mug down. "However it was pointed out to me that while your abilities have been proven you have not in fact performed any jobs as a full-fledged hunter, and you are teaching at the best school for Hunters in existence. Instead of making trouble for you on that head, the council has… magnanimously decided to allow you to do jobs as a Hunter regardless."

His lips peeling, Ranma growled, a sound that made Blake actually flatten her ears and back away a step for some reason she couldn't fathom. "I've half a mind to just tell 'em to go jump off a high bridge somewhere, or just say screw 'em and walk off." Indeed, Ranma would probably have done just that rather than kowtow to the powers that be if not for the number of friends he had made among the students here.

"Believe me I would like nothing better than to do so, but they have a point: too much of your past has not been documented, and letting an unknown like you near the students here in Beacon is not something we can allow. Yet at the same time, your fame has started to spread thanks to your part in the Battle of Waypoint." Ozpin replied. "So they wish to assign you to a major show the flag mission."

With a tap on his scroll a screen popped up in one wall, showing a road of some kind leading from the city of Vale to another, far smaller city on the shoreline. "This is Bronze Rails. It is a slow train that travels from the city of Vale through the countryside to Eastport. It is one of several economic lifelines, and it will be transporting several VIPs to a conference in Eastport. The council has requested that you be one of the Hunters in charge of protecting them."'

As Ozpin operated the scroll a small symbol of a train moved across the map from Vale to Eastport. "The trip actually should be relatively peaceful other than your needing to deal with Bronzewing the elder, he is the uncle of the freshman, and others like him. They are important business men, running much of the industry and they are either on the council or have the ears of those that are. They assume this makes them important to everyone around them, and I imagine your disabusing them of this notion would be a powerful temptation.

"Why'd you have to jinx me like that Ozzy? Saying it was peaceful, ugh, that's like waving a red flag at fate." Ranma groaned even as his eyes narrowed. "Okay, so why are the Freshmen here?"

Ozpin sighed once more. "From Eastport you will be travelling to Mistral with the next convoy. Team JNPR will go with you. They have been requested by name to be sent to Mistral and deal with an extermination mission that has come up there.

"In other words they want me back and want to use me and my team as publicity," Pyrrha said interrupting Ozpin's flow. Even though she looked outwardly calm, her tone was sharp, and her eyes glinting angrily.

Ozpin looked at her, taking the moment to have another sip of his special blend of coffee. "Indeed. I hate to say it, but that is almost entirely a political move. Your fame has reached new heights since the Battle of Waypoint, and Mistral's council is feeling public pressure to show that you still respect and are tied to Mistral over Vale." _I wish I could tell if that was the case. My own ally in Mistral reports that, but I have no other agents in Mistral, so I am really forced to take their word for it. Then again, what I have seen in the news from Mistral seems to agree with them._

"I could have ignored Mistral's council. Their influence is almost nil over Beacon but they and the Vale Council combined I could not. I did however make them pay for it." Ozpin said with a grim little smile, "and they will not be getting everything they wanted, either in Vale or in Mistral. There will be no public addresses, at least not planned ones, no speeches, and you and your team will not be asked to endorse anything."

Pyrrha breathed a sigh of relief at that while Jaune, Nora and the others all smiled or touched her shoulders in support.

Ozpin smiled at that, but went on. "Mistral wanted just team JNPR, no doubt hoping to pressure them into possibly transferring to Haven, ostensibly because the job would be taking so long. I trust you to make certain it does not Ranma."

Still wishing to just tell all the politicos to shove it and disappear and not trusting himself to not curse in front of Ruby Ranma simply replied with a grunt at first. But he knew if he did that it would cause problems for Beacon, the teens and his sister. "So, hobnob with the rich and moronic without breaking their nobs, then seek and destroy some Grimm as fast and as thoroughly as possible. Got it. What about Team RWBY?"

"Ahh, there we actually have a political sentiment that I would like to back." Ozpin replied with a fleeting smile before he looked at Ruby and her teammates centering his gaze on Blake, who seemed to stiffen. "Aster Winchester will be one of the business men going to this mission, and he's been a target for the White Fang for several years thanks to his company's policies towards Faunus."

Yang stepped forward, placing herself between Blake and Ozpin. "Now hold on a minute!"

"Yang, it's fine." Blake said, laying a gentle hand on her partner's shoulder and moving her to one side. "I presume you want to use my knowledge of the Fang against them sir?"

She kept an eye on Team JNPR out of the corner of her eye, but other than blinks and looks or faint surprise, they didn't seem to care about her past. They had reacted much the same way to her being a Faunus in the first place, a response that warmed Blake almost as much as her own team accepting her did.

"Not at all, though that is in fact a bonus. No one but I and a few members of staff know that you were a member of the White Fang." Ozpin replied, smiling at Blake and the younger teen's non-reaction. "The fact you are a Faunus and fought in the Battle of Waypoint has however become known since… the cat was let out of the bag."

Yang laughed aloud as everyone else there including Blake groaned. "Oh that was awesome Prof!"

"Thank you Miss Xiao-Long. In any event the Vale Council wants to show that not every Faunus is a member of White Fang or agrees with their terrorist activities. So it was either your team or one of the others, and Ms. Xiao-Long and Ms. Rose were requested by name."

Watching both sisters blink at that before looking at one another in confusion, Ozpin smiled slightly. "You see, the leader of the train system, the company who laid the rails? His family was saved by your mother Summer Rose, and he wants to give you something to thank your family for her efforts. It is another PR stunt of course, rewarding the young heroes of Waypoint and linking you both to a past hero, but given the level of the threat on this mission I felt that a freshman team could be better utilized than either team RUST or CFVY."

Ozpin took another sip of coffee, letting the students internalize what he had said before going on. "So, Ranma will lead first team RWBY on the train protection run, after which you will return here, and he will join team JNPR on the trip to Mistral from there. This will give team RUST, which has already been assigned to the trade convoy, some backup on the ocean, which is the most dangerous part of the mission in terms of Grimm. Of course, this is all supposing you accept the missions in the first place. As students you are free to decline, even with the pressure the council is putting on me."

"Team meeting everyone!" Ruby shouted, pulling her team to one corner and conversing with them in hushed whispers. It was obvious however that Blake was pushing hard for them to take their half of this mission. Eventually RWBY agreed, though Weiss was looking a little dyspeptic for some reason, alternating between looking out the window and glaring at Blake, who was looking simply guilty.

Team JNPR took a lot longer, with Pyrrha being against it, but the others persuaded her by saying they wanted to see where she lived and meet her family. Ren and Jaune sweetened the deal by pointing out they could always unleash Nora on any nosy newsies or politicos that got too pushy.

After the teams agreed Ozpin dismissed them to talk to Ranma alone for a few seconds, telling them to be ready to head to the train station early tomorrow morning.

Pyrrha however was still very angry as she marched out of the clock tower, only noting that it had stopped raining peripherally as she stomped off towards their dorms, the others falling behind her as she did. _Darn it all, I wanted to leave that all behind, to never have to deal with politics or being in the spotlight like that ever again! I've so enjoyed my time here in Beacon with Ranma and my team and friends, but now they are trying to drag me back in. Well, no more miss nice girl, I'm done with just going with the flow because I don't think it's polite to refuse. I've real friends now, and a new goal in life and I won't be used any longer._

The redhead was brought out of her angry mental proclamations by Ranma's voice. "Alright guys and girls, get over here for a second."

Yang blinked, staring at Ranma then up at the tower, which they had left several minutes ago. "How'd you?"

"I went out the window. Listen screw their reasons, for this mission, screw what the politicos want to get out of this. Load up for Ursa and let's have some good Hunter-type fun on this mission okay?"

At that Ruby grinned giving him a thumb up, while the others looked interested. "What would you suggest?" Weiss asked, cocking an interrogative eyebrow at the older boy.

"Well for one thing Ozpin just told me I could take out any supplies we wanted, even buy some, so we get to travel in style and take with us as much ammunition as we can grab. So let's start backing the train today."

Ranma laughed as most of the freshmen cheered that, even Blake, while he looked back at the clock tower. Ozpin, who was still talking to Beni about taking over Ranma's classes, hadn't told him anything more about the mission. The headmaster had told Ranma a bit about the people on the train then as Ranma, Ozpin had let had out one of those cryptic as hell comments that Ranma was quickly coming to realize were his trademark.

' _Do be aware that enemies can come from all corners Ranma and about what we talked about after you returned from Waypoint', my balls. Why do I get the feeling I'm being used like a stalking horse? Well, whatever, I'll just wait and see what happens, but if one of my friends gets hurt because of this Ozzy, you and I are going to have_ _ **words**_ _._

 **OOOOOOO**

Arriving at the train station was supposed to be a major PR event, A Faunus student 'volunteering' to guard a possible White Fang target was big news, as was the hero of Waypoint being part of the guard detail. Despite that, the politicos had decided to arrange a formal public interview after the train arrived in Eastport, a glad-hand event that would show how happy the businessmen were for having been guarded by the Hunters, and the Hunters smiling and happy for having been of service. After all, it was best to wait until after the mission to do so, since then you could always blame the Hunters for anything that went wrong.

This didn't mean they tried very hard to stop the newsies from finding out about it. Or that said newsies wouldn't show up to try and get some pictures/interviews.

However Ranma had anticipated that and came up with a quick and dirty way to get around it.

The crowd watched shocked as a red streak passed them racing what looked like a motorcycle with something on fire stuck to its back. It was only when the bike somehow managed a jump over their heads and they heard a "Yeehaw!" from above them that they realized that was a person. The motorcycle landed on the last train cart, and the driver hopped off before grabbing her motorcycle and hopping down with it to the back of the cart before loading it in quickly.

The streak too slowed down right before the train. The young brunette with red highlights in her hair and a hood bowed to the gathered reporters, flashing them a wide smile. "Hello, I'm team leader Ruby Rose, speaking for team RWBY. We're in a hurry so we can't stop to chat, bye!"

With that she turned and boarded the train, heading in to meet her sister who looked as if surgery would be required to remove her grin. Not that Ruby was much better. "HHEHEHE, that was awesome!"

From the other side of the train Ranma led Blake and Weiss onto the train at the front, throwing a companionable arm over the shocked man's shoulder. "So, is everyone on board who should be?" At the man's stunned nod, Ranma nodded and pushed him towards the controls. "In that case, what are we waiting for?"

Nodding his head and beginning to smile at someone taking the starch out of the newsies, the man started the train. Slowly as the reporters began to protest the train began to pull away from the station.

As it did, Ranma turned to Blake and Weiss. "Alright you two, you're on internal protection for now. Weiss, don't talk to anyone of the VIPs unless you have to, that's an order." Ranma said with a wink, causing Weiss to smile happily for a moment before she controlled herself. "Check out the workers on the train, where the VIPs are and then go over the manifest. If any of the workers, I imagine they've got men watching their goods, gives you lip refer 'em to me."

The two young girls nodded, and Ranma followed them back from the engine before leaping up onto the rooftop of the second cart. He then held up his new and as yet unnamed lance into the air, which was matched by Ruby and Yang raising their weapons at the back of the train. "Ready to go back there?"

"Yep, and oh my god Ranma, I am so going to kiss you for coming up with that idea. That was fucking awesome!" Yang bellowed back, causing Ranma to blush.

"Er, okay I'll take that as a yes," Ranma muttered, keeping his voice down and turning to watch the train start moving under him and away to their next adventure.

 **End Chapter**

* * *

Woo! And we are away again from Beacon. Yay! The train idea - I figured that Schnee Dust company couldn't be the only one shipping stuff overland, and even today in RL trains do a lot of transportation. I also figure that steam-powered trains make a lot of sense since it allows dust to be used for other things. And this also gives Ranma time to interact with the eight teams one at a time, letting me give each team more screen time in turn. Maybe it will also be enough to let Ranma figure out if he wants to go out with Yang, or that there could be someone else out there for him.


	13. Chapter 13

**I can't draw, therefore, not named Rumiko or Roosterteeth.**

While taking 212 here on fanfic this story scored huge over on pat r on and had my own votes since it has been so long since I last updated it, gaining a total of 1,330. The second place winner was FILFy Teacher, which has already been updated.

The next closest was from a pat r on only poll, with 1069, _GDWHOM_. Apparently, a lot of people wanted to see where I was going with that ending last chapter LOL. Nipping at its heels was _Anything Goes Game Changer_ , with 925. It took in 341 votes here on fanfic, the rest it earned over on Pat r on.

The others came in order: _Stallion_ with 686, another pat r on only poll. _Fate Touched_ only brought in 599.

Oh, and for those wondering, ATP will be up sometime tonight.

This has been beta-read by me using Grammarly, so we'll see how it goes. Oh, and the hashtag is deliberate, no jinx here LOL.

* * *

 **Chapter 1#: Trains Can Be Fun**

As the train slowly left the city of Vale behind Ranma pulled out the information on his scroll on the train as he stared around it. The thing was slow moving: it was a freight train not a passenger train, with massive carriages, each of them heavier than anything that could be moved by air in this world as far as Ranma knew. He also knew it was a long toothsome target. To offset this was the fact that there were guns on the rooftops of a few of the separate carriages and cargo containers, and the majority of the large carriages had metal for walls, even the onews which weren't containers.

Some of them however near the front of the train looked as if they didn't belong to the rest of the train being for the special VIPs going on this trip. _Why the hell these people didn't fly like normal people is beyond me. Yes, I know that they are trying to make a point about Vale being safe and all, but damn it, this is really stupid._

Shaking his head at that, Ranma leaned backward negligently falling off the side of the engine for a second before his hand flashed out to catch the lip of the conductor's entryway, flipping himself down and through the open window. He nodded at the two conductors at work there who nodded back, showing no surprise as they had seen him exit the same way a few moments ago.

He passed through several carriages which were devoted to fuel, before coming for one with a sleeping quarter for the quartet of conductors. There were two other conductors there, one of them sitting on his bunk, the other laying out on his.

Talking to them Ranma learned that the rest of the train's crew, the gunners and other workers had living quarters further back. Sitting down to the one laying out on the bed Ranma leaned back against the outer wall, feeling the shudder of the train as it moved on. "So, what can we really expect?" He waved his scroll airily. "Our initial briefing didn't really tell me much other than that the VIPs going and why."

"Figures," said one of the conductors, raising his head from where he had actually been dozing to look at Ranma. "Higher-ups never really care about the nitty-gritty."

"So enlighten me," Ranma replied.

"There isn't much to tell about the trail, it's a normal train rail for the most part," the other conductor said. "There are two tunnels, short ones, and we pass through the mountains relatively quickly. The entire route is mostly straight, with a few turns and all them, slow, lazy things. No town or anything along the routes of course."

Ranma nodded since that really was normal in this weird universe. The area they were passing through wasn't farmland, and there were more and easier accessed mines elsewhere so it was really important. Still, it was a sign of how little the actual countries controlled within their territory thanks to the Grimm. In the other nations, it was pretty much the same thing if somewhat different in nature.

In Mistral, the valleys that were generally free of Grimm made up very little of the continent's landmass. In Vacuo, most of the desert was unclaimed territory crawling with Grimm. And at last, while having massive industrial areas in numerous sectors connected by train, there were large swaths of territory in Atlas that were no-go zones which were routinely pruned back by their local Hunter and military forces. Further, it had numerous small and large islands around it, and only one of them was cleared of Grimm enough to have a native human habitation. According to something Glynda had said Charlotte, the senior girl, came from there.

"What about Grimm attacks?" Ranma asked intently. "What about White Fang?"

"There are about five places along the trail where we might be attacked," the older conductor said, pulling out an old tattered map and pointing them out. One of them was where they crossed quickly through the mountains. Another one looked like it was just a normal flat plane to Ranma, but when he said that aloud, the old man shook his head. "It really isn't. It's a series of low rolling hills. Unless you're flying above them you can't really see what's between 'em."

The other three were simpler. Two of them were river crossings, which the train would have to take slowly given its weight. The last possible ambush point was the final tunnel near the safe zone aroundEastportthey were heading towards.

"But we've only been attacked by Grimm about three or four times in the last few months, and all of them were small incidental things." The old man finished.

"I wouldn't bet on that continuing," Ranma replied dryly. "How good were the normal hunters you got assigned?" This train made a trip like this once a month like clockwork, but Ranma had no idea about the mission's danger rating. "And what about the White Fang? You ever been bothered by them?"

"B-grade," The other man replied from his bed. "They normally dealt with any land bound Grimm getting near us while our gunners dealt with the flying types. Those attack us more often than the ground type since they can keep up with us for longer. And as for the White Fang," the white-haired man shrugged. "Why would they attack us? We're carrying bulk goods, not exotics. Local goods, food unprocessed metals, no prepared weapons or dust. And our parent company's staunchly apolitical."

"Even in Atlas, the only time they protect trains were those transporting dust and belonging to that one rich family, what was their name again?" the other conductor said, said turning to his fellow.

"Never mind," Ranma said hiding a wince as he could all to easily guess what family they were talking about. _I wonder if Blake ever attacked a train like that. Best not to ask, or at least not around Weiss._

Ranma thanked the two conductors for their information and moved back through the train, intent on speaking to Weiss and get her impression of the VIPs. Ranma didn't really care about them one way or the other, but it he did want to know if they were liable to try to get underfoot, panic, or attempt to give him and the youngster's orders. _The key word there would be_ _ **attempt**_ _though_ t he thought to himself with a smirk.

After leaving the living quarters for the crew, quickly Ranma entered the first of the VIP sections and the difference was stark. Wood paneling instead of metal for one thing, and as Ranma stepped in, he noted the noise of the train tracks disappearing, which meant they had soundproofing in the walls to go with the plush seats and carpet on the floor. Ranma had known that these carriages had been taken from a passenger train, but even so.

Inside the carriages, he found Weiss moving around six other people, four men and two women, who were mingling together around two tables that stuck out form the walls. One had some small finger foods on it, the other drinks of all sorts, or at least all sorts of alcohol at least.

Weiss was moving between them, her small frame making her seem somewhat out of place despite her haughty air making her a match for the men and women around her as she looked at the carriage. She was testing the wall, frowning when Ranma entered, though her frown probably had more to do with the two men closest to her.

One had to be the older Winchester, Mauve. He was as tall as his son, with equally wide shoulders, though he didn't give off the feeling of having been trained like Cardin had. He wore what Ranma marked down as traditional rich man's garb, a long overcoat and a good, white shirt with somewhat more normal pants.

The second man was younger, maybe in his twenties, with a far thinner build and a bishonen face. _Yeesh, he looks like that guy from the haunted hot-springs, the guy who hid in the water and attacked with Bathhouse Fu._

At present, he was attempting to flirt with Weiss apparently. "Come on my dear, surely you can take a few moments to have a drink with us. All of us would love to hear directly from a powerful, beautiful Huntress such as yourself about the Battle of Waypoint. And we have some questions about how this recent rash of Dust thefts has affected your family's company."

"And I told you, sir, that I am on duty at present. Nor am I in any position to speak for the Schnee Dust Company." Weiss said, her tone implying both that she had been saying this for some time, and that she had substituted the word sir for something else entirely, probably not nearly as respectful.

"Oh please. For people of our standing Weiss, I can call you Weiss can I not? For people of our standing, there is always room for interpretation to such things as 'duty'. By the way, what kind of hair product do you use in your hair, it looks so silky smooth…" the would-be swain then reached forward, running his fingers through Weiss's ponytail.

Weiss whirled, her self-control disappearing in an instant. While she was no Yang, there were just some things you didn't do to a girl, and that was touch their hair like that without permission. Her hand flew to the hilt of her dust rapier. But then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and a somewhat calming voice spoke up from behind her.

"Sorry to pull her away for a bit guys, ladies," Ranma said with a polite but extremely economical bow of his head. "But we need to talk. Hunter business, you understand right?" With that, he pulled her back out the way he had come in, ignoring Weiss's mild protests at his manhandling and ignoring the people around them, despite a few attempts to get his attention.

They stopped in the space between the two cars, balancing there for a moment, the noise of the train's passage coming to Weiss as a bit startling after spending the last fifteen minutes in the soundproofed VIP section. "I suppose I should thank you, I might have done something that oaf would have regretted," Weiss said, having to almost shout the words to be heard over the sound of the train.

"And that you wouldn't have regretted at all?" Ranma replied with a grin. "You're welcome, but if it gets to be a problem, don't forget you can just walk away. I doubt those rich idiots would want to get their dainty little feet dirty entering any of the other carriages." With that, Ranma became serious. "But the VIP section is a weakness in our defense."

Weiss nodded having seen that same thing. Every third carriage on the train was supposed to have a small gun on it on a turret mount to deal with aerial threats if nothing else. They weren't large caliber or had much range, but they were good enough to deal with most flying Grimm. With the VIPs having forced their own carts into the train's normal allotment of carriages, there was a break in the air cover.

"At least the outer walls are metal. It's only the interior that has wooden paneling. I've also marked out the windows in the center of the carriages just in case we have to defend from in-close. and I've already chosen which carriage I will force the VIPs in if we're attacked."

"They won't be a problem beyond that?" Ranma asked skeptically.

"There are a few that might try to join in but only one of them would be worth something in a fight. Mr. Bluestone is the owner of a large fishing fleet operating out of Eastport, indeed, he's the one hosting the trade conference and he seems a relatively tough older gentleman. If nothing else, he could spot for one of the gunners. None of the rest have had their auras activated, which came as rather a shock in Winchester the Elder given the younger buffoon's abilities." Weiss reported crisply.

Ranma nodded. "Against a Grimm attack, the priority will be to protect the entire train but remember we're also expecting trouble from the White Fang. If they attack, it'll be your job to ride herd on the VIPs, make certain they stay away from the action and stay safe. Will you be able to do that and keep from skewering them yourself?"

"I will admit that it will not be pleasant, despite the better quality of food on hand in comparison to that which is offered at the Beacon cafeteria. However, it won't be the first unpleasant thing I've had to deal with. And if I lose my temper during a time of crisis, what of it? They can't bother me at all while I'm at Beacon and after that, I'll be a fully accredited Huntress." Weiss said smugly, before waving a hand airily. "Oh, my father might be angry I didn't take this opportunity to broaden our economic ties to Vale, but I couldn't care less about that."

"Good." Ranma then turned away staring down at the door to the carriage they had just exited. "Now we just have to get through them to the rest of the train."

"Once more into the breach," Weiss said with a sardonic smirk of her own, smacking him lightly on the shoulder with one hand. "Surely the big strong teacher isn't afraid of a little social gathering?"

"This ain't my kind of social gathering," Ranma said with a chuckle, letting his original accent out for a moment. "But let's get this over with. Then follow me, I want to talk to the others. I doubt we'll see any action today, but I want us all on the same page when it happens."

As they entered Ranma was quickly hailed by the older Winchester. "Ah, Hunter Saotome, good to see your Hunter business didn't take long. Might I ask a question however Azure Warden? Beyond your famous shield, what kind of weapons do you use?"

Before Weiss could warn him not to reply, Ranma shrugged. "I'm still gathering my weapons load out, but I've recently added a new Mecha-form weapon to go with my shield, and I like using mono-wires. Why?"

Mauve looked a little put out for a moment before recovering, smiling smarmily at Ranma. 'Well, as you know my family is one of the largest weapon's manufacturers in the Four Kingdoms. We do both mass-produced and specialized weapons. I'm certain we could provide you with something to match your style if that is your wish."

"And of course having the Azure Warden using your weapons would be a magnificent advertisement." One of the other men quipped.

"No thanks," Ranma said with a shrug. "I was taught for most of my life to fight with just my hands and feet, only using weapons when I had to, so I'm still figuring out what I want there, except for my shield. For now, I'm using this."

With that, Ranma pulled his lance out of ki space, where he had stowed it while looking over the train from the top of the engine. The suddenness of it took most of the watchers aback, but he ignored that, slamming the lance point down to one side of him.

Mauve moved forward to look it over, as did Weiss, who hadn't seen the weapon up close before this. They were soon joined by another, older gentlemen while the rest, including Bronzewing, moved away slightly, watching but also carrying on their own conversations. He wore understated clothing in comparison to the rest of the group, and was rather spare of frame. He had short cropped gray hair, and a scar running down the side of his head down his neck to disappear under his neckline.

"Hmmf, a lance type weapon with can mecha-form into a rifle, with a Fire Dust addition to the lance tip?" Mauve muttered, looking over it to see if he could spot any flaws in the design or the material used. Unfortunately for his desire to use Ranma's fame as his company's new mascot he couldn't. _And worse I doubt I could convince them there was one despite that, blast it!_

"That's right." Weiss said, smiling thinly. "My partner Ruby Rose designed and built it, and I must say that it is a most adequate weapon."

"A student designed this?" both older men asked as one, though their tones were very different. Mauve went on laughing a boisterous, yet false sounding laugh. "Well, we could certainly do better than that. And don't think that we'd be asking you to test out our new weapons for free. There would certainly be some remuneration coming your way…"

"I doubt it," Ranma drawled, letting his hick accent show up once more. "As for money, meh, it ain't important to me. I'm happy with my weapon as it is, leave it fer now."

Mavue huffed, moving away. "That's fair enough I suppose. But once that cheap weapon fails you, do remember to call me. After all, anything we can do to arm a **human** Hunter is something Winchester Arms is willing to do."

"Oh, so you wouldn't offer to arm a Faunus Hunter?" Ranma asked, his voice deceptive, but something in it made the other, older gentlemen move away quickly to watch the fireworks from a safe distance.

"Bah! Don't get me wrong, I'll admit that some of those animals are capable of fighting, even thinking some of them. But I would never willingly give any of them a weapon, less they turn it on their betters. You can't trust those animal freaks. They're just smart enough to be dangerous, not smart enough to knoew their proper place in the world."

Ranma clenched his hands, angrily, but before he could reply, Weiss spoke up, a faint condescending smile on her face despite the anger crackling in her eyes. "Ah, I see, I will be certain to tell Blake that. You realize she, my teammate, is a Faunus, don't you Mr. Winchester. If you really don't think her efforst are worth the trouble, I'll gladly inform her that she needn't bother protecting you should we be attacked by Grimm or the White Fang. I am certain that would make it all the easier to protect your fellows should that be the case."

"Remember why we wanted Ms. Belladonna to be part of our guard detail Mauve," Said one of the women, flashing a quick smile at Weiss and then almost leering at Ranma before looking back at the older Winchester. "We wanted to show the world that there are Faunus who aren't jumping at the idea of violent uprising espoused by the White Fang. Your stance on Faunus rights is well-known, but if it gets in the way of that objective Mauve, I'd be more than willing to push for you to be barred from the trade summit."

"Indeed, and not all of us approve or even respect that position." The other older man said, speaking up and holding his hand out to Weiss. "As for trusting this particular Faunus lady, the maiden's defense of her teammate should tell you that she is trustworthy. Luke Bluestone at your service, Ms. Schnee."

Weiss smiled and held out her hand, watching as Luke bowed over it, lightly kissing the back of it before standing upright. With that, she decided he was a flirt, but at least a gentlemanly flirt, and she didn't see any real lust in his expression, only amusement. "Charmed, sir."

"And Weiss speaks for me too." Ranma said, his voice intense. "I've got no time for racists or terrorists, or anyone else who thinks it's a good idea to find ways to further divide humanity in the face of the Grimm." He glared around him, the two women blushing somewhat under his gaze. "Now, if you'll excuse me, we're still on duty."

With that, Ranma lead the way through the carriage and out of the VIP section. Leaving the VIP carts, they quickly found Blake who had been moving through the rest of the train towards the front, stopping in the kitchen carriage where they met. She nodded at them then concentrated on Ranma.

Once more he looked twitchy in her presence, which again struck her as strange. She surreptitiously took a slight step forward, watching in amusement as he took an equal step backwards. _Heh, this looks like it could be really fun in the future._

"Nothing to report," she said calmly gesturing back over her shoulder. "There's nothing in the crew compartment's that's dangerous, nothing flammable, liable to explode, or contraband as far as I can tell, although I haven't searched the VIP yet?" she finished on a question looking at Weiss

"Bah, this lot of buffoons aren't the type to get their own hands dirty smuggling. If they did that it would be on a far larger scale," Weiss replied with a scoff.

Blake snorted at that before continuing her report. "There's no one hiding aboard either, not even a single newsie hiding. I've already gotten out our ammunition where it was stored, though we'll need to get Yang to move it."

"Good," Ranma replied simply. "I don't want any of those vultures underfoot any more than I want the VIPs to try and throw their nonexistent weight around. The crew?"

"Ten train workers who double as gunners, three of whom usually work as cooks part time. Bronze Rail also brought in one butler, three waitresses, and two cooks for the VIPs. None of them should be a problem."

Ranma cocked his head thoughtfully while Weiss stared at her teammate. "Yeah right," Ranma drawled as Weiss said, "Oh am sooo certain that's the case…" but it was Ranma who went on. "Come on Blake, give it to us straight."

Blake stared at the two of them then sighed. "Three of the expanded crew are Faunus, and only one of them seems to not be trouble one way or another. One of them has problems with me working with the man as it were, directly for the Vale government that is. Ironically, I don't think it has anything to do with a Faunus working with the human government he just doesn't like governments in general."

"Much more understandable that way," Ranma grinned, but he gestured for her to continue.

"The last Faunus is a cook, and doesn't like humans any more than humans normally like us." Blake finished. "He could be trouble down the line."

Weiss smiled thinly. "So should we check for poison in Winchester's meal or add some? Decisions, decisions."

That won some laughter from her two companions, but Blake was serious as she continued. "There's one problem with the entire train though and it's even worse in the far back. None of the other carriages have windows, we'd have to open the loading doors to fire out, those that have loading doors. The others are just solid cargo boxes. That means we'll have a major problem with any kind of close in combat."

"I noticed that too, and the main objective of our defense will be to keep any Grimm away from the train by at least 50 feet. The guns on top can depress just enough to give us some fire, but it'll fall on us and that mortar cannon at the back to do most of the work."

"But as long as we keep moving should be relatively safe, surely," Weiss said, though her tone made it more of a question than she would have liked. If anyone had asked her Weiss Schnee would have haughtily proclaimed team RWBY was ready for anything, but this was their first official mission, and deep down, she knew they were not quite ready for it.

"If enough Grimm throw themselves underneath the train and block the wheels, they'll stop us as easily as someone putting a giant wall," Ranma said grimly.

That shut both of the girls up, and Ranma nodded at them, before moving on. "I'm going to go see through Ruby and Yang. When I'm done talking to them we'll split off again back into your normal teams."

With that Ranma exited the carriage they had been talking in hopping, leaping up onto the first of the long series of cargo boxes heading towards the back of the train with Weiss and Blake following him. Just as he alighted on the second to last carriage he paused, looking at the gun situated there. It was the equivalent of a large, crew served mortar cannon, probably slightly longer ranged than the ones he had seen used during that last battle by Waypoint.

When he turned to move forward however, he was surprised to find Yang was already close, throwing her arms around him and pulling him into a hug before clamping her lips on his. Those lips were wet and gave slightly as she pressed them in, but demanding, pushing against Ranma's own with vigor. Her chest pressed against his, the feel of them an odd captivating mix of tautness and softness that grabbed at Ranma's attention. Ranma's body stiffened like a board, but even so, his instincts had him slowly start to kiss back.

After a second Yang pulled back, waggling her eyebrows at him. "I did warn you I'd give you a kiss for that moment of pure awesomeness you had us pull back there."

Ranma blinked dazedly, staring straight ahead, his pigtail flaring straight back from his head. He'd tried not to return the sudden kiss, his first kiss with an actual girl, and had found his instincts as warring with his instincts for self-control. In the end, only one thought was going through his head as Yang pulled back. _Damn, kisses are great aren't they!?_

After a second, Ranma was able to cut that thought off with the visual aid of watching Weiss lay into the blonde bombshell. "…Utterly reprehensible of a student and a teacher! You should know better Yang! We have a higher standard we must live up to than most normal students, and your actions reflect not only on you but the entire team. Furthermore…"

In contrast, Ruby wasn't nearly as eloquent. "Yaaaannnnng! I don't need to see that I don't need to see that, I don't need to see that! I don't need to see a couple kiss, I don't need to see my teacher who is also my friend kiss a girl who is my sister, and for certain I don't need to see that right in front of me!"

Only Blake wasn't joining in the fun, instead making certain their surroundings were still clear. There were only two gunners on duty up front right now and given the size of the train, that wasn't saying much.

"All right," Ranma said shaking his head and wiping at his mouth with a sleeve. "Let's set that to the side for now and concentrate on our actual jobs okay?"

Even Yang looked a little bashful at that. But it didn't last long as she looked at Ranma, licking her lips slightly.

That caused him to blush and look away, but he went on quickly. "Anyway! From now on we're going to assume that any trouble is going to have to build up before we get to it, if the Grimm attack us piecemeal, they won't be able to get through our defenses. So we should be able to see the gathering Grimm before they are in a position to attack. Blake, Ruby, I'll want one of you near the front of the train day and night. Ruby that means you'll have to let Blake use Crescent Rose."

Ruby winced a little. _My baby! But, but it's for a good cause…_ "I suppose… But Blake, don't try to follow fire it while you're standing up. There's no way you'll be able to handle the recoil without training. It'll blast you right off the train, Faunus reflexes or no."

"Don't worry," Blake said with a smirk on her face. "I won't hurt your precious baby."

"See that you don't!" Ruby replied, evidently not having heard the sarcasm.

Ranma decided to warn the two girls at this point. "Just remember your main job won't be to actually fire, but to first see trouble coming and then to spot for the mortar cannon. It can do a lot more damage than just your simple sniper rifle."

"There is nothing simple about Crescent Rose!" Ruby said haughtily, sticking her nose in the air. "But that makes me feel very conflicted," she said, setting Ranma's gross discourtesy to her precious to one side. "On the one hand, I want to show you what my sniper rifle really it's worth, but on the other hand mortars! Explosions!"

Rolling his eyes, Ranma went on addressing the others. "Yang, you'll patrol the top of the train, Weiss, the interior. And remember, you can't stab the rich snobs."

"Of course not," Weiss said with a sigh. "Don't worry about me, it was just a momentary lapse caused by that one lout touching my hair. I can handle myself. After all, I grew up in that kind of social circle." Weiss then shot her partner a look, before going on slowly. "Though, I will admit to having come to enjoy the more straightforward-nature of society at Beacon."

"Is that your way of saying you like to solve problems by stabbing them," Ranma asked, causing the other three girls to smirk.

"I will not answer an account oh perjuring myself," Weiss replied promptly, which made the others all laugh.

 **OOOOOOO**

The first two days of the trip were uneventful. Ranma made certain that all four of the teams got enough food and exercise while off duty, with one team always on guard while the other slept. At the same time, Ranma went around the train opening the cargo containers here and there to make sure that their contents matched with what the manifest he'd been sent. He didn't want to be a part of trafficking any kind of illegal anything, and if they might be targeted by the White Fang for what they were secretly carrying, he wanted to know about it in advance.

His thoughts during this time was, _I know Ozzy freakin' jinxed us, but maybe this time I can see how Fate's going to ream me before it actually starts. Mind you, the White Fang don't need any reason other than those two assholes, Winchester and Bronzwing aboard._ Ranma had seen a few examples of Winchester's anti-Faunus beliefs before coming aboard. If anything, his public persona undersold his hate and contempt for them.

Beyond contemplating Winchester's arrogance, the only thing Ranma found of interest was the ammo for the gun cars Blake had found, though it didn't hold a candle to the good stuff they'd brought along for all of their weapons. The only one that wasn't true for was Weiss, but she had brought several large crates of her own carrying dozens of dust cartridges for Myrtenaster. If they were attacked, it would be up to Weiss to keep the tracks ahead of them clear, while Ranma, Blake and Yang protected the train from any close in threats.

Yang objected to that when she heard of it on the second day when Ranma told RWBY this. "I should be the one plowing the road! I'm the most durable, and in close, my shotgun shells do the most damage. With Blake or Ruby to back me up from overhead threats…"

Ranma interrupted her shaking his head. "No, that'd be true if we weren't already on a train, but the objective isn't to break through a horde, it's to keep one from forming at all. Plus, no offense to Weiss but in close combat, she isn't exactly in her natural element. Besides, your shotgun shells **do** have range issues, but they are far better at in close defense. And if the train does get stopped somehow it will be up to the three of us to go down, clear whatever's blocking us and fight off the Grimm at the same time."

"Again getting really conflicted here…" Ruby muttered, which caused her sister to reach over and ruffle her hair playfully.

Yang also spent these two days trying to pin Ranma down. It was time to figure out where the heck the two of them stood in her opinion. Flirting was all well and good, but she wanted some more kisses at the very least. She sure as hell wasn't in love with Ranma, but she definitely was interested in dating him, while Ranma's responses to her were very disjointed in her opinion and right now she was afraid she might have scared him off entirely.

On the third day out, the monotony was somewhat broken by two different dramas.

The first occurred when Yang came off work, her position replaced by a few more of the gunners going on watch. Moving forward along the top of the carriages she spotted Ranma near the middle of the train sitting on one of the cargo containers. He was sitting there staring around him as he chewed thoughtfully on some hors d'oeuvres he had grabbed from the VIP carriages.

Tensing at the sight, she breathed in deeply, girding herself before leaping in that direction. A few jumps later, Yang sat down next to him, leaning against his side and picking up one of the little dainties from his plate with her fingers before popping it in her mouth. "That's tasty."

If she hadn't been watching for it, Yang would have missed how Ranma tensed up when she sat down, and even more when she touched him. _Okay, so when his blood isn't pumping he's got an issue with being touched? Weird. Or is it just my kiss has gotten him all nervous? That'd be kind of cute I guess._

"I know, I was thinking about trying to wiggle the recipe out of the cook," Ranma said, not moving back as he turned to look at her.

That gave her hope at least. Yang nodded then changed the subject abruptly from food to why she had been really searching out for him. "You've been avoiding me," she said bluntly. "Why? Did I come on too strong?"

"I…" Ranma blushed looking away as he fought down his desire to say something stupid like 'I can handle anything you dish out' or even the worse maybe, 'I don't know what you're talking about'.

But this wasn't a combat situation and Ranma was no longer so stupid as to say something like that. "Look," he said instead. "I can flirt, if I get a good run up to it, but it's not a natural thing to me, okay? It's only been the last few years that I've realized that hormones and stuff like that were things that shouldn't just be avoided or ignored."

Yang stared at him in shock and Ranma shrugged. "My old man was an utter bastard outside the Art. He thought that kind of thing took away from my learning martial arts. So while I like some flirting, it does sort of put me off at times. I, I don't know how to react. And then there's how I'm not really certain what I want in a relationship, what I'm looking for or whatever. And honestly getting kissed like that in front of the others made it a little worse for me." That bit was harder than the rest to actually admit aloud for Ranma, but he bore up with it.

That caused Yang to nibble her lip thoughtfully, moving around so that the two of them were facing one another face to face across the plate, which was currently rattling on the roof of the carriage as the train continued on its merry way. There was a lot of that she didn't like from a father who had tried to train his son to simply ignore hormones, to the fact that Ranma had admitted that she kind of was coming on too strongly for him.

She didn't like that. She would've preferred Ranma to respond in like kind like he had at times during their spars, and like the kiss eventually. _And damn that was a good kiss!_ She thought, _short but really freaking sweet._ The feel of Ranma's body against hers had also heightened the effect.

With those feelings going through her mind once more, Yang grabbed onto the last. "So if I flirt with you without anyone else around, you'll enjoy it at least? If not try to return the favor in interest?" She really was serious about Ranma and was willing to put in the effort, no matter how irritating she found it.

"Well," Ranma stuttered. "I can't say I'm totally comfortable with it. Though I suppose I would somewhat have enjoyed it yes… But, but what are you looking to get out of this?" I mean are you looking for a relationship, or just some fun?"

"I don't know," Yang said honestly. "For now, I'd like some fun. Maybe it could lead into other things eventually."

That was sort of a lie. Yang knew she was emotionally attracted to Ranma as well as physically, but she wasn't quite ready to just blurt that out. _Besides, given how jittery he is just fire from physical affections, saying something like that aloud would probably be even worse._

Ranma nodded slightly as in words not being able to follow her actual thoughts. "I see. I don't know what I want I there either."

"Well then," Yang said, scooting around once more to lean into his personal space and putting her forehead against his. "Why don't we have some fun, and just… see where it goes…"

Whatever Ranma's response would've been, they were interrupted by Ruby's shout over their headsets, which all them wore at all times when the train. "You guuuuys! I can still see you, you know!"

"You shouldn't be able to if you're facing forward like you should be!" Ranma shouted back, but the moment was ruined. Yang scowled, turning away after grabbing another dainty from Ranma's plate and popping it into her mouth, looking back over her shoulder as she slowly pushed it in, followed by her finger which she began to lick as she locked eyes with Ranma. Pulling her finger out Yang grinned wickedly at him. "I'll see you around Ranma."

"For now," she muttered, turning away now while Ranma looked to be turning into a cherry. "I have a little sister who just demanded a noogie."

Sighing, Ranma leaned his head back laying out on top of the train. _Saved by the Ruby, might have to buy that girl a cookie for that._ Uncertain of his own feelings, Ranma had no wish to try to lead Yang on, but he also didn't know how to tell her to take it slower, other than what he had said before, which didn't seem to have sunk in as he had hoped. _Or at least, she didn't listen to everything I said. Still, maybe she's right? Maybe just starting a relationship to see if it'll be fun is the way forward?_

 **OOOOOOO**

Later that same day, Ruby and Weiss were off, Blake having taken Ruby's place up front with Crescent Rose after Ruby's obligatory pouting and whining about having to leave her baby in the hands of someone else. The two pint-sized member of RWBY decided to eat in the VIP dining room since it was lunchtime. Weiss had also determined that Ruby needed to be taught the finer points of etiquette and dining in refined company.

The two of them were talking about that to the exclusion of all else, Weiss using it as a buffer against the people around them. Every time she entered the VIP section she had been approached by one of the other of the businesspeople. Her refusal to take part in their discussions or give any statement that could be construed as coming from the Schnee Dust Company had yet to sink in. But Ruby's youthful looks and sheer innocence seemed to keep them away, which made Weiss smile somewhat more than Ruby was accustomed to seeing on her besty.

Even better in Weiss's opinion, the lessons were actually taking! "Very good Ruby, we'll make a lady of you yet." she praised as Ruby choose the right spoon for the tea they were sharing after also using the right fork for her main meal, a very nice veal dish. She had even been able to eat it despite never having eaten veal before.

The two of them looked up as Blake came in, looking for Ruby. Since she was on duty at night, she only spotted for Ruby for an hour at meal times. The other mealtimes were covered by Ranma. "Time's up, Ruby." She said, fighting back a yawn, her cat ears twitching on her head as she did. Since having come out to her team about her past and Faunus heritage, Blake had not gone back to wearing her trademark bow, and had seen no reason to do so for this mission.

She held out Crescent rose in its travel form to Ruby who swiftly exited the small booth she and Weiss were sitting in grabbing at the box that was her precious weapon. She quickly shifted the weapon through its forms, checking it over head-to-toe as she always did when Blake handed it back "I'm sooo sorry baby but don't worry, Blake's good people, she'd never hurt you," she cooed. "It's just a sign of your pure awesomeness that we have to have you on guard as often as we can."

"You better check that for cat fur too!" Mauve Winchester shouted from nearby, following up with a guffaw.

Blake's eyes narrowed, but she ignored the man watching Ruby once more look over her weapon as Weiss stood up, gesturing Blake to take their place if she was hungry. "I would recommend ordering the tuna with asparagus and truffle. It was quite delicious yesterday."

Blake's ears went up at that and she nodded firmly, but before she could do anything Winchester stood up, growling and shaking off one of his fellow's hand on his shoulder. "No way will I eat with a fucking animal! Get her out of here, she can eat in the kitchen like the rest of the pets."

While two of the other businessmen tried to restrain him, the others were all just looking on, wondering how the huntress in training was going to react.

"Needless to say," Weiss said soto voce which nonetheless carried. "Not everyone's on board with the idea of using you as publicity of human-Faunus relations. You'd think they would all have gotten the message on that point."

"That's fine, I'm more comfortable with their hate than that idea in the first place." Blake replied. "Not hate," Ruby said, remembering a conversation she'd had with her sister on this very point. "Envy. Some people might hate the White Fang because of personal reasons, but letting that hate color their thoughts on all Faunus, that's just fear and jealousy."

"Hah!" Mauve shouted, finally succeeding in throwing of the hands which had been restraining him up to that point. "What the fuck would I be jealous of you animals for! How to piss to mark my territory!?"

"Well, many Faunus have physical abilities that set them well above their human counterparts. In Blake's case, she can see in the dark, she is incredibly agile, very bright, she's stronger, tougher, faster, nicer, younger, far more attractive, oh I'm sorry, I got carried away there." Weiss said, her voice serious even as she made a joke, though she actually did think that. Weiss knew all of team RWBY were extremely attractive, comparing them to the middle-aged men and women around them was comparing apples to oranges and ugly oranges at that.

Ruby hid a giggle behind a hand as Blake smirked at Weiss's comment before looking back at Winchester senior. "You know, I've always wanted to talk to a racist and ask them a simple question. Can you prove your position?"

Everyone there save Weiss blinked, wondering where she was going with that and she went on smoothly. "Well, all racists believe their own race to be superior to the one they oppress. So I have to ask you, how can you prove humans are superior?"

Mauve seemed to swell up, but Blake gave him no room to argue just yet. "Myself, Velvet and other Faunus students at Beacon regularly score among the best in our grades so you cannot claim to be smarter, not with any scientific basis. As Weiss pointed out in terms of physical ability, again we are as good or better. Money? That's too arbitrary and has nothing to do with race, rather what you personally have done with your life or what you have been born into. Looks? Again, no, we're talking about one race being superior to the other. So what allows you to say that your race is superior to mine?"

For a moment it looked as if Mauve simply was too angry to form words. Then he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Humanity was around first bitch! We made the nations of this world when you people were still thinking about using tools rather than your own nails! We have the numbers, we have the industry, the money the power! You Faunus are freaks, and you're always be freaks!"

But Blake simply shrugged, keeping control somehow. "Isn't that the oldest recourse of the bully, using words to belittle your victims rather than meet their argument with your own? So once more, you cannot actually prove your position, you instead resort to emotional bellicosity. How sad to be ruled by your base passions like that. Why, that's almost like being an animal yourself, isn't it?"

More than one of the people there clapped at that, amused by how she had put Mauve in his place. She completed this by turning around and ignoring his ongoing vitriol, exiting the carriage with Weiss and Ruby, both of them congratulating her on her victory.

 **OOOOOOO**

The next day, Ranma woke up feeling paranoid, or rather more paranoid than normal. It was raining like cats and dogs out, but that wasn't why he was feeling that way, nor was the fact that this was hampering their ability to see. No, Ranma knew this feeling all too well, his sixth sense tingling like all get out. Something was watching them with ill intent, causing Ranma's hackles to rise. He got up quickly, grabbing his new lance up in one hand, his shield on the other.

Outside the tiny compartment that he had been assigned, Ranma found Blake already up and about, as she stared out one of the Windows in the far side of the train from their rooms. They nodded at one another, Blake forgoing her usual teasing of Ranma, and Ranma forcing his fear aside for a second. "Is Ruby up front?"

Blake nodded, and turned wordlessly to the door to get Yang out of bed. Ranma did the same for Weiss who had been allowed to sleep in that morning given the rain outside. He was nearly being shrieked out of her room for his trouble as she realized she had slept in her normal sleeping attire of a silk chemise.

Then of course Ranma made it worse by saying, "Don't worry, it's not as if you have anything to see," which caused Weiss to grab at Myrtenaster. But he got away quickly enough so that the rapier punched through the door that had been behind him a second ago. Weiss's shrieks of "I'm still growing, you, you lecherous oaf!" followed Ranma as he raced through the train.

He ignored that however as he raced into the crew compartments, grabbing the gunners from where they had been resting. "I want all the guns online, and all of you in them," he ordered, before turning to look over his shoulder at one of the cooks who had just woken up. It wasn't mealtime, so both of the cooks were off, while the waiters were not. "Come on," he said, gesturing him to follow him as behind him the gunners raced to reply. We'll put you to and the rest of the noncoms in the middle-most passenger carriage along with the VIPs."

The Faunus scoffed. "You think they'll allow that?"

"You think I'll be giving them a choice?" Ranma replied tartly. That shut the other man up, though he was smiling as he did.

When they reached the VIPs, Ranma was unsurprised that Winchester the older asshole was being loud and irritating. "Bah, there's not a Grimm in sight. This whole trip was to prove that the Grimm threat can be overcome, not cower at a little rain!"

"Agreed. Besides, one carriage is as good as another," Ceta Bronzewing said. None of them were very happy about being rousted from their breakfasts. He waved his hand airily, in Ranma's face,

Luke however stared at Ranma and then at the gunners, who were with him. He opened his mouth to say something but too late. Ranma was already acting.

After the first day when he turned Winchester's attempt to talk him into an endorsement the VIPs had gotten used to the mysterious Azure Warden ignoring them, or at best rolling his eyes at them before going on his way. Any attempt to talk to him was ignored, and after a few days the rich men and women heading to the trade delegation had quickly labeled him as a part of the furniture.

This ended when Ranma reached over and hefted Winchester, a man equally as large as his son, out of the chair by a grip on his shoulder as easily as if he had plucked an apple. He then began to toss Winchester Sr. up into the air like a ball. "You either move, or I move you, your choice."

"Ahem, I don't think that's at all necessary," Luke said quickly, speaking up before any of the others could speak. "I've known many Hunters, and the best of them develop a sense for when things are going to go bad. I trust that is what we're dealing with."

"Yep. There's something watching us, can't tell you where yet," Ranma replied. The fact he was still tossing Winchester up into the air didn't seem to have occurred to him. "Blake can feel it too, and one of the conductors said he was feeling antsy too up in the engine."

One of the women scoffed at the notion of a Faunus's words being important. Ranma had not gotten their names very deliberately given the looks he'd seen them give him that first day and the fact they were racists made Ranma very happy about that decision. He ignored them now instead simply gesturing them to move. When they didn't, Ranma tossed Winchester up again, very deliberately. "Now, move!"

Soon enough Ranma had browbeaten the VIPs into moving, pushing them into one of the now empty carriages that had been carrying fuel for the train's engines. Its thick metal sides were far more cover then the thinner walls of the rich folk carriages.

Outside it was still pouring out, enough so that Ranma actually got wet between one carriage and the next, as did the now protesting VIPs, but Ranma didn't care at all. A second later he was off

He found Ruby there, her legs covered with a blanket, her hood up, seemingly protecting her from enough rain that she didn't need a poncho or anything over it, staring through her Crescent Rose's site into the distance. "I can't see anything," she reported. "Blake told me to be on guard over the com, but I don't know why."

"It's just a feeling, I have it too "Little Red," Ranma said, kneeling beside her for a second ignoring the rain all around them. Shading his eyes with his hand to keep out the rain Ranma stared all around, then stared straight up. Through the rain pouring down Ranma saw a small speck in the sky. "Ruby, turn your Crescent Rose upwards, tell me what you see up there?"

Ruby complied without question, and scowled as she saw the familiar form of a bird flying well out or bullet range up. "There's a Nevermore Alpha up there, the kind that we had to tangle with during our initiation ceremony. If anything it looks a little bigger given how far above us it is."

"Well crap," Ranma muttered, ignoring Ruby's gasp and shout of "a dollar in the curse jar!"

Through the pouring rain, Ranma tried to make out any sign of the terrain, and it was with growing unease that he noticed they were in the semi-hilly area the old conductor had mentioned as being dangerous thanks to the hills blocking their view. Behind him Ranma heard the thrum of the nearest gun coming online. "Mortar team," he voxed into his communicator. "Are you online?"

"Affirmative," said one of the gunners that was assigned to that piece. "Waiting for target acquisition."

"Wait one," Ranma said, looking over at Ruby. "You have any idea where the target could be?"

Ruby shook her head, turning to look over her shoulder as Weiss landed on her other side kneeling down. Unlike Ruby was quite warm and toasty in her hood and cloak, though, Weiss wore a white (of course) poncho covering her from head to toe, Myrtenaster the only thing sticking out from the rain.

"How many of your glyphs can you use on something the size of the train?" Ranma asked briskly, glaring all around them as he began to spot black masses moving here and there between the small hills they were moving through. _Fuck, they'll be able to close with us no matter what we do!_

"If it was only the engine, I could use a speed glyph, but the size of the train… I don't know if those connection things between the carriages would be able to take the sudden acceleration. I can however use ice glyphs to slow and do some damage. In that way at least the rain will work for us. My time dilation glyphs will also work of course, but I am afraid I cannot use more than a dozen of those in any given day. The Ice glyphs I could use for hours and not get tired, somewhat less so for my other element glyphs," Weiss said crisply, her earlier anger at Professor Saotome's thoughtless comment set aside for now.

She was actually quite worried at the moment. While she could use her ice and lightning in this weather, fire was right out, but what really concerned her was being stuck in one place to protect the train's engine. Her personal combat style was based off using her glyphs and small size to bounce around the battlefield, not stay stationary. _Still, the professor's initial plan is still sound. Yang and Blake's skills are more suited to the goal of defending the train in close on the ground._

Nodding at that, Ranma turned his attention back down the train, speaking over the . "Yang, Blake, you two ready?"

"Ready, willing and able, babe!" Yang said. "I've got the left flank covered. Right now I'm at the center of the train, and I've got grim incoming already."

"Blake here, ready. I'm at the same position along the train as Yang, but I've got the right. Worse, I also have incoming Grimm. Closest group seems to be made up of Beowolves and Creepers along with some other variety I haven't seen before. They look almost like antelopes, but with Grimm masks and massive forward facing antlers. They are too packed in to estimate numbers." Blake said her voice more professional than her teammate as she gave more details than the others could thanks to her better eyesight in the gloomy rain.

 _And right there our enemy is showing their hand somewhat. Grimm species rarely work together like this in the wild unless they are reacting to human misery, and we were not feeling miserable until they showed up. So… that probably means that there's an S-class Grimm around here somewhere directing them._

"Roger that Blake. Is everyone able to communicate with the gunners?" Ranma asked, waiting until he got the affirmative then nodded at Ruby. "Gunners, odd numbers watch the skyies, the rest depress as much as you can and fire on anything that moves! Tracer rounds Ruby, light them up! Mortar team, unless you see a nearer target, fire on the target's Ruby illuminates! Let's get this party started!"

With that, the train lit up from one end to the other in the downpour, guns blazing. Ruby fired first, twitching this way and that as she took the group of Grimm ahead of them under fire. There was a distant crump from the back of the train as the mortar opened fire in turn, and Ranma watched as it impacted amongst the Grimm, smashing them every which way.

Then he began to fire himself on a group of Grimm which ad closed into his own rifle's range, while next to him Weiss prepared herself, bantering slightly with Ruby about how she needed a long range weapon. For a time, that was all that happened. Several of the groups of Grimm broke at the sudden fire from their quarry, which proved it was aware of them and had teeth to boot.

Yang's side was pressed quickly, her own lack of range causing issues, but she still kept the Grimm off the train, blazing form one end to the other watching for and dealing with the closest Grimm with Ember Celica. Across from her, Blake did the same thing, though without nearly as much enthusiasm. Gambol shroud fired in full auto, laying down more fire than Yang and keeping the Grimm away from her side better.

At the front despite Ranma felt the impact on his arm as he fired his rifle as fast as he could, each bullet smashing a grim to one side. With Ruby and the mortar team keeping the train tracks ahead of them clear, it fell to Weiss and Ranma to protect their sides as the train chugged forward. And it soon became clear that it was at the front of the train where the Grimm had concentrated the most.

"Ugh, this is so irritating!" Weiss shouted, lashing out over the side of the engine with a glyph that transformed the falling raindrops into thousands of tiny, sharp icicles which raked through the group of Grimm on that side. This group was composed entirely of the new antelope variant and they didn't have any armor guarding their backs, so more than half the herd went down to this assault. "They never show battles in the rain like this in the books or lessons!"

"Then you're reading the wrong books and takin' the wrong lessons." Ranma said somewhat philosophically. "You can't always choose your battles, and last I checked, no one controls the weather." His words were punctuated by the sounds of his rifle as he tried to keep the Grimm on his own side from closing as well as Weiss had.

"Ugh, stop trying to sound wise Professor! I'm still miffed at your comment earlier!" Weiss grumped, lashing out this time with a blast of ice dust that hit a leaping Creeper, throwing him backward.

"Fight now, argue later," Ruby interrupted, frowning as she took another shot forward. "There's something screwy going on here… The Grimm don't attack like this, do they Ranma?"

"Not unless an S-class is around," Ranma said. This wasn't the time to tell Ruby or any others that there were more threats out there, and that one of them might be a group of humans who could be working with Grimm somehow. _Let alone the whole Maiden angle, and what other secrets Ozzy's obviously keeping._

Still, Ruby's words had forced Ranma to step back from their portion of the battle to the overall engagement. "Blake, Yang, either of you see anything unusual?"

Blake replied in the negative, but after the sound of an explosion and a loud "Take that, you freak!" from Yang, she answered somewhat differently. "Yeah, I got something unusual. We're only being attacked by ground-type Grimm. Where're the Nevermores?"

Ranma blinked at that, then looked up into the sky again, seeing thousands of tiny dots up there, growing bigger as they fell. "Fuck! Yang, Blake, whoever is closest get back to the mortar cannon and protect it, we have incoming from on high! All gunners shift to anti-air now!"

Though she was the closest Blake, barely had enough time to get to the mortar before the next wave of attackers was on them. Four Nevermores landed and began to attack the cannon, but Blake gunned three of them down as she ran then sliced the head off the other. Wrapping Gambol Shroud around the barrel of the cannon and twirling in place Blake kicked out at two more that had just come down, using the edge of the Shroud to slice a third. But this was just a small portion of the total.

From above them hundreds of Nevermores, more in one place then they had seen in the Battle of Waypoint. Ranma also saw several dozen Giant Nevermores, which began to rain down their razor wings on the train, in particular the engine. With his lance leading the way Ranma leaped up to meet them, smashing the razor feathers aside, using his mobility in the air to both keep over the engine and protect it, concentrating on knocking the feathers aside for now.

Several wings got through, and a single Nevermore landed on the engine behind the two girls, but Weiss quickly twisted, flashing forward on one of her speed glyphs, the point of Myrtenaster taking it in the chest. Pulling it out she quickly used a glyph to slow down time around her, lashing out above Ruby as she stood over her partner. "Keep firing you dolt!"

"Right!" Ruby shouted, still firing tracers at the groups of Grimm trying to bar the train's passage.

Of course the hunters couldn't be everywhere, and thought the gun crews down dozens of Nevermore, they couldn't down them all. Scores got through, their claws and wickedly pointed bills stabbing. Five of the guns went silent, their controllers having dropped back into the train or killed, Ranma didn't know. They were followed by two more, leaving a large portion of the train without air cover.

Thankfully the train was still moving, so the land based Grimm were slowly being left behind. But several Beowolves were still able to close now, leaping onto the train. Two of them climbed the side of it, their nails digging in only to be blasted back off by Yang. She let loose one a group of Nevermore, smashing them into pieces or just off the side of the train, at the moment she didn't care which. "Ranma we've got major problems!"

"Conductors, get this train moving!" Ranma shouted, now going on the offensive slightly that the storm of razor feathers had passed, leaping ever further upwards thanks to the nearest Nevermore until he was in among a flock of them.

"What the fuck do you think we've been doing!?" the conductor snapped back. "We're going as fast as we can!"

Grunting, Ranma didn't respond for a moment. The added impetus of his lance was throwing him off slightly even in the air, and there were a dozen Nevermore around trying to stab or claw him. _Or should that be 'talon me'_ He mused, smirking at the thought even as his lance took one Nevermore in the eye. The blow's momentum thrust him backwards to kick off another, an almost lazy blow behind him decapitating that bird before he landed on the back of a third.

"Riding the bird Grimm for a moment he fired all around him thinning the flock as he took stock of the battle below. More Grimm were now coming at the sides of the train, smashing into it, climbing up it or trying to muddle the wheels. The groups in front had never been able to coalesce enough to be a threat thanks to RW and the mortar cannon. There were pockets of combat along the train now, with Yang embroiled in a fight against several dozen Grimm near the center of the train and Blake trying valiantly to defend the caboose and its precious mortar.

 _Precious yes, but more precious than more speed?_ With so many of the guns between the end of the train and the front silenced, Ranma was seriously contemplating unlocking some of the train cars and letting them get on. _I know it'd seem bad to Winchester and the rest since this trip was supposed to prove how safe trade is, but that mission was scuppered the moment we were attacked._

As Ranma was thinking that thought, he noticed that they were almost through the hills onto the grassland beyond, and there was no Grimm presence there. So there was still hope to get the whole train through. "Mortar Team, retarget to the sides, our way forward is clear! Ruby, you're free too, go back up your teammates and clear this train, one pass then return to Weiss! Only a bit more girls, then we'll be through!"

"Roger! Ice Flower!" Ruby shouted, twisting around as Crescent Rose morphed into its scythe form. Weiss quickly put down a speed rune in front of her partner, watching as the girl sped like a massive red bullet down the length of the train, cutting and slicing to either side so quickly her movements could barely be seen. Within one second and the next Ruby had cleared a large portion of the train.

Ranma however could no longer concentrate on the overall battle. A shriek of pure, brutal sound slammed into his side, hurling him like a physical force off his would-be mount. Then two large talons tried to grab him as another pair, this time of hands, lashed out at his chest. The talons tried to punch through his armored plate, but Ranma brought his shield up, blocking them as he thrust his lance towards the attacker forcing it upwards with a squawk.

That this made it drop Ranma was a minor concern, as Ranma twisted his angle enough to land on top of another Nevermores' wing, before pushing back off and towards the initial attacker. As he did, Ranma stared at the Grimm which had attacked him. He hadn't fought this variety before, but he recognized it from stories he'd exchanged with Port. _A Tengu!_

The Tengu were one of very few flying type S-Class Grimm, and was one of the more humanoid versions. It looked like a Tengu almost, a heavy Grimm mask twisted to look like the mythic creature, with massive wings the same size as a Giant Nevermore. At each wingtip were cruel barbs, which also stuck out of its back and chest. It had one set of regular, nearly human arms, and a lower set of bird's legs below that. It was fast, decently armored for something able to fly, and somewhat good at gathering other Grimm. Ranma knew from Port however that it wasn't as good at leading them as the Dryder he had already fought, hence the bad timing on this attack.

Screaming in outrage at either that or the fact its initial strike at Ranma had failed, It shot through the air toward him, but Ranma leaped toward it, something that seemed to surprise it despite the fact Ranma had been in the air by this point for five minutes or more. At the same time however, it did something that surprised Ranma in turn: it grabbed at a few of its wings, tearing them out and somehow forming them into short swords. "Well that's new!" Ranma shouted as they two clashed in midair.

At the press of a button, Ranma activated the fire dust in his lance's tip, igniting it and lashing out. The flame made the Tengu rear its head backwards, but it still struck back with its new swords. Ranma took the hit on his shield, ducking under the blade that came for his head a second later. He flipped upwards and away from the momentum of the first blow, grimacing as the Tengu's wings smacked into his side but twisting with the blow, coming around and stabbing with his lance.

The Tengu didn't seem able to get its head around a human being as at home in the air as it was, and couldn't respond in time. The lance stabbed into it's side right where the wing met its body, blowing off the joint. It fell towards the ground with a cry, and Ranma followed.

Taking a page from the Giant Nevermore, the S-class Grimm tried to hurl its wings at Ranma but he bounced between them, gaining momentum as he followed the Tengu down. the thing then tried to redirect Ranma's lance strike, which it did, but he barreled into it bodily, taking the thing's attacks on his chest and shoulder before lashing out with the shield on his other hand, letting his lance fall for a moment and punching out hard enough to crack the Tengu's mask.

The Tengu roared in pain but struck back, smashing first one fist then it's other forearm into Ranma's head before head-butting him. The first blows hurt, but Ranma had time to Rear his head back and bring it forward to meet the last blow. And it was the S-class Grimm that cried out, even more damage being done to its mask. But it still punched out once more, the blow smashing through Ranma's chest plate, but not penetrating his actual body, which was rather tougher than normal steel. It paid for that blow with a with a punch that smashed the portion of its nose that looked most like that of a normal Tengu.

Locking his legs around the Tengu's lower body, Ranma twisted them this way and that while the two of them hammered on one another, with the Tengu now trying to concentrate on defense, it's mask having taken so much damage that it could no longer even think of attacking. So busy was it defending against Ranma's attacks that it never noticed he had flipped them around in midair, so that the Tengu was slightly above Ranma. Nor did the Tengu notice they had dropped past Ranma's lance, right up until the tip of it slammed like a thrown spear into it's back.

Even as the Tengu's body began to decompose, Ranma disengaged his legs, reaching up past the rapidly disappearing body to grab his weapon, flipping end over end for a bit before slamming feet first, kneeling to take the impetus of the landing, his lance thrust out to one side.

Ruby had by this time traversed the top of the train several times. Thanks to her speed and the cutting ability of Crescent Rose she could do a lot more damage to multiple opponents on such a battlefield than the others. She now swirled to a stop next to Ranma, gasping a little. "Leaping, hah, and, hah, running is, hah, hard!"

"More endurance training for you Ruby." Ranma admonished, his eyes flickering all around. He smiled as he saw they were clear, no more Grimm and no more hills for them to hide behind. "Team RWBY, check in! Gunners, Conductors, check in." he ordered.

Ruby instantly shifted Crescent Rose into its sniper from checking the skies. But the Nevermores, even the Giant Nevermore had all started to run away the moment Ranma had begun to shatter the Tengu's mask. For some reason that seemed significant to Ruby, and she made a mental note of it. "No Nevermores in the sky!"

"Damn Ranma that was freaking awesome. If you have to do it, do it with style babe!"

"Right, so that's two," Ranma drawled. "Weiss?"

"All clear up here, though I would appreciate it if someone came and relieved me," Weiss said, her voice sounding rather strained. Near the end of the fight a Nevermore had nearly smashed her off the engine, and her arm had been somewhat twisted when she caught herself on the edge.

"On my way Weiss! Don't worry partner, we'll see you right!" Ruby said, zipping off in a blaze of rose petals.

"Those two are so cute sometimes it makes my teeth ache," Blake replied. "I'm fine, my Semblance protected me, but I seriously need a…"

"Cat nap?" Yang interjected with a grin, having reached her partner by then. Blake was slumped against the mortar cannon, her legs wobbly under her.

"I'd push you off the train for that, but you'd probably come up with another damn pun," Blake groused, though she made no protest when Yang pulled her to her feet, putting one arm around the cat Faunus's waist.

Ranma ignored this byplay, he even ignored the gunners checking in. Most of them had ducked out of their turrets in time, though all of them had been injured, three severely. Their fellows were already seeing to them however, Luke having let the others out as soon as his conductors told him the coast was clear. It was doubtful they would pull through, but the young Hunters hadn't realized this just yet, and Ranma decided to let them keep having their fun for now.

Instead, he concentrated on one of very few Grimm in sight. There were a dozen of them or so, most of them running away. But one, a massive Beowolf Alpha stood so still it had grabbed Ranma's attention. That, and it was hiding between two rocks near the tracks. So near it could see them, and Ranma could see its eyes. Still staring at it, Ranma flicked up his lance and fired.

He watched as the Beowolf Alpha actually looked in his direction and didn't move, taking the bullet right through the chest. "Yeah no… that wasn't creepy at all…" Ranma drawled, hiding his shudder as moved toward the front of the train. For just an instant, something else had been looking out of that Grimm's eyes, something ancient, and very, very evil.

 _Why do I think this attack was just someone's idea of a scouting mission? And.. and that I gave away more than I learned? It looks like my idea of a Grimm being out there who's smart enough to make plans was spot on. Ozzy and I are definitely going to have a long talk when I get back to Beacon._

 **End Chapter**

* * *

This wasn't quite the chapter I wanted to put out, but I felt I wasn't giving the last few scenes I had planned the impact they needed. So I decided to cut this off here, and then expand the next one to include several more scenes instead. Hope you all enjoyed this, despite it having been so long since the last chapter LOL. And as always, if you want to have more say in what stories I update going forward, please come over and join us on patty ron.


	14. Chapter 14

Can't program, and my last name ain't Takahashi

For the small (I tell a funny) story, FILFy Teacher won by a landslide. It won first place here on fanfic, bringing in 678 votes, and a total of 1,687 votes total.

Semblance of Hope came in second though it only took in 166 over on fanfic, it brought in a lot of votes over on pat r on, bringing in a total of 1,386. This puts it in second place and it will be updated tomorrow night. Just could not get it all done in time to update today. RL and going over FILFy Teacher took too long.

The next poll here on fanfic should also be up Wednesday night.

This is going to be an even shorter chapter than most of these chapters have been, but I think you all should still enjoy it.

 **Chapter 14: Defanged**

While RWBY were all getting a much needed rest, Ranma did a quick survey of the train, making certain no wreckage was hanging off the sides or back where it could slow them down or snag. Since it was still raining, this was not a fun experience for the dimensionally lost former aquatranssexual. He found two of the guns had been smashed off the top of the train and were hanging down, one of them even banging against the train's side. He tore them off, and then finished the survey by checking in with the gunners and the passengers, and asking the cooks to prepare a meal for everyone. Ranma figured that a nice meal would help everyone calm down and move on from the attack. Plus, he was hungry.

Munching on a massive sandwich, Ranma dropped off some food for the conductors then hopped back up onto the top of the engine, staring ahead of them as best he could. _Darn it Ruby, what did I say, I wanted that sniper rifle of yours up here at all times. But no, you had to fall asleep cuddling the darn thing. And then, to top it off be too cute for me to want to bother you. Hmmm… I wonder if someone could weaponize that kind of cuteness. Would be kind of funny to try, and it could work as an anti-Grimm weapon._

Shaking those thoughts off, Ranma let his mind drift to what was really bothering him. Well, besides the ongoing downpour anyway. _The Grimm in that attack were too organized, too prepared. Yes, that S-class could have done some of that, but there is a big difference between taking control of an attack on a known settlement and lying in wait for a moving target, a big difference in the level of intelligence and knowledge of your enemy that shows. Plus, this is by far the most serious attack this train's dealt with for years._

 _And then there's that damn Beowulf Alpha. That was disturbing. So, it's pretty obvious that someone or something else was directing that attack, using the Tengu as a… what, a front line officer? A medium? It's obvious whatever this is it can't control a large number of Grimm without an S-class nearby, so both of those work. But is this another Grimm, a Grimm Emperor or Empress? Or is it a person? I sort of got an impression of age, but that doesn't necessarily mean much, I could be wrong or who knows, maybe there's an immortality Semblance or something._

 _Whatever it was, it's intelligent, amoral, doesn't care about its troopers much if at all. And it wasn't after the train, but the people. If it was after the train, it could have waited until it didn't have Hunter protection. Could it have been after me? This whatever it is knows about my having the Spring powers?_

Finishing his by then soggy sandwich, Ranma stood up, now scanning the sky above them as much as he could with the rain coming down, before turning to take in their back trail. _Spring never really told me much about who was after her, but she did hint a time or two that there was more to the Grimm than most understood._

 _Yeah, let's assume then, and act like I've got a larger than normal bullseye on my back._ He smirked, actually chuckling before going on aloud. "So same old same old then. Well whoever you are, I hope ta hell your insurance is paid up, because trying to bridle this horse is going to cost you, I guarantee it."

 **OOOOOOO**

Ranma was not the only one thinking about this recent battle and taking stock of what they had learned. Salem was doing the same, reviewing her memories of the battle and in particular Ranma. **_He didn't use the Spring powers, but comparing this Ranma fellow's image with the image of the individual who used them in the battle around Waypoint it is obviously the same individual. That confirmation alone would be worth the loss of all save the Tengu. Still, to think the Maiden powers can travel to a man, most unusual._**

 ** _Further, Ranma seems to be as at home in the air as on the ground. And he had a most interesting style, based around movement and redirection._**

 ** _"Pinning him in place will as usual be the first step in killing him. NO human alone can stand against the numbers of my hordes. Perhaps forcing him to fight underground somehow, in cave, tunnel or basement? Any of those would take away his ability to take to the air so adroitly. Yes, that should be the first order of business…."_**

Salem's words to herself slowed as she watched a recording of the battle on the Seer she was currently connected to projecting into the air in front of her throne. Seeing how Ranma had near to singlehandedly dealt with the air component of the attack was fascinating to watch. She shifted slightly on her throne, a scowl marring her near-human features as at her mental command the replay began again from the beginning.

 ** _But beyond his skills as a warrior Ranma has leadership potential too. As a symbol of hope and a warrior he is very dangerous._** Salem began to calculate, one long white nail tapping a rhythm on her throne and then sighed. I ** _will have to pull back from helping my dear queen for a time. Dealing with Ranma takes precedence. The way he seems to have weaponized what should have been the least offensive type of Maiden power plus everything else I have seen, makes removing him far more important than letting my queen regain the last vestige of Autumn's power._**

In front of her the Seer Grimm continued to play the battle from the view of a few of the Grimm involved, switching between the Tengu's point of view, the Beowulf Alpha, and the Giant Nevermore. One image however caught Salem's attention and she concentrated on her link with the lesser Grimm for a moment, forcing it to rewind to something Salem had seen through the eyes of an Alpha but hadn't noticed.

The Beowulf in question was among a few of its lesser fellows and had actually climbed up onto the train, tearing at the metal roof of one of the railcars. Since Salem could not share her creature's senses beyond sight unless she concentrated on them, she didn't know why the Alpha Beowulf's was doing this but that was immaterial to what had caused Salem to look at the memory once more.

As Salem watched, the Beowulf glanced up, the image changing form the top of the railcar to a red blur flashing towards it from further up the train. Then there was nothing, the Grimm in question dying almost instantly.

Slowing the memory down, the blur slowly formed into a person, a young girl in a long red cloak complete with hood. In her hands was a truly massive scythe. But it was her eyes that Salem looked at. **_"Silver Eyes,"_** she murmured. ** _"I see. I will have to have her dealt with as well. Still, judging from her age, she must be a Beacon student. I can assign that task to my queen, unless the girl stays with Ranma. For now…"_**

Once more Salem began to calculate odds, angles and the abilities of her various tools, both human and Grimm. The Grimm was already in place, but now that she had seen more of Ranma in action, Salem wanted to stack the deck even further against him. **_I think I must put in place two of my human tools to make certain that Ranma is dealt with._ ** With that she reached out mentally to two of the human, or in this case one human and one Faunus, minds she had implanted with her brand of poison. _**"I have a task for you both in Mistral…"**_

 **OOOOOOO**

Thankfully for everyone on the train the day after the battle dawned bright and sunny as the train continued on its slow if merry way. Ruby, who honestly needed no sugar to be hyperactive, turned over and attempted to roll out of bed, only to find a pair of arms around her. "Uhh? Did I get into bed with Yang again?"

Looking down with somewhat bleary eyes she saw that the arms encircling her were not Yang's tanned, muscular forearms. They were smaller and the skin was a pretty white color. Further, Ruby realized she had fallen asleep in her Hunter outfit, complete with her ever-present cloak. The hood of which Weiss was nuzzling into from behind.

"Erm, Weiss?" Ruby said, her voice rather worried. As happy as she was to have some of what Yang called skinship with her partner, Ruby knew that Weiss would respond poorly to this once she woke up. "Erm, Weiss, you need to wake up… and also don't yell or overreact."

"Mmm, so soft," Weiss murmured, nuzzling deeper into Ruby's hood. The smallest member of team RWBY had been utterly exhausted, totally beat from the fight the day before, beyond even the level Blake and Ruby had felt. She had collapsed and not even noticed when she hit the bed, already out of it. Ruby had also fallen asleep almost at once, falling into the first bed she came to.

A soft click noise drew Ruby's attention away from her blush and her partner to the doorway, where her worst nightmare stood. Yang grinned back at her, holding her scroll open from where she had taken a picture. "You're sooo cuteee! The pair of you are so cute I think I'm at my sugar quota for the day just watching you!"

'Yannnnng!" Ruby whined. "Please don't!"

Behind Ruby, Weiss began to stir. "What are you whining about Xiao Long for now Ruby? My word, I had a most pleasant sleep and this body pillow, it is most comfortable. I might want to purchase one myself…" Only as the words left her mouth did Weiss realize the situation she was in. "What in the…"

Another click drew the frozen Ruby and highly embarrassed Weiss attention back to Yang. "Hahaha! Body pillow, buy one myself hahaha, oh god that's too good!"

Leaping away from Ruby, Weiss glared at Yang. "Yang Xiao Long don't you even dare!"

But Yang ignored the furious Schnee, hopping away out of the doorway. "Oh that is going to be hilarious, and zip it goes into my protected folder. Have fun with your 'body pillow' Weiss. I need to go get Blakey up from her catnap. Or maybe check in with the passengers first, yeah, best to get that out of the way I suppose."

This left the two younger girls to stew in their embarrassment, both of them blushing and looking away. "Um, um, if you want, I can see if I can get my dad to send me some of the stuff mom used to make my cloak…" Ruby said hesitantly.

"Ahem, yes, well, that sounds like a most excellent idea." At that the two of them fell silent, looking anywhere but at one another, until their stomachs rumbled in unison. "Food?" Weiss asked. Ruby nodded, and the two moved out of the room in search of something to fill their tummies.

Moving through the train, Yang checked in on the injured. The three most injured had been airlifted out during the wee hours of the morning when the storm let up enough to get a bullhead both into the air. The bullhead in question, with several loads of fire dust for their engines and had caught up with them from Vale. The injured had also been replaced by more gunners and a doctor, who would travel with them from now on. _Though I doubt the gunners will be useful, after all, we don't have any guns left bar the mortar cannon,_ she thought, rolling her eyes at the idiocy of whoever had ordered these men to join them.

With her conscience assuaged, Yang checked in on her baby, Bumblebee. Thankfully it was safe tucked away all nice and pretty in its cargo box. She spent several dozen minutes fussing over her bike, which also let Weiss and Ruby have enough time to wake up and maybe check in with the passengers before she did.

This didn't work alas. The two pintsized members of RWBY had just grabbed some food from the kitchen cart and retreated back to their room instantly. This left Yang to deal with the bunch of angry, concerned and still arrogant rich people.

"Damn it, is this the way you Hunters go about your business? Not even bothering to protect your real clients, letting their property be damaged!?" Growled one of the rich assholes whose name Yang hadn't bothered to learn.

He was quickly joined by the others, including the idiot who had been attempting to flirt with Weiss, his voice rising over the hubbub for a moment. "Indeed, I bet that these young fools don't even understand the amount of money it will take to repair this train. Or how big a loss of face it is to have us be attacked like this after we kept on saying how safe train travel was?"

"Yeah and who's fault is that numb-nuts?" Yang growled back, smacking a hard finger into his sternum and setting the main on his rear before looking around at the others. "It isn't our fault we were attacked like that, so don't blame the attack on the people who protected you from it. It was pure coincidence that the train was attacked like that on this trip. You can't blame anyone for that. As for the money it'll take, cry me a river! Or did you not know we had injured who had to be airlifted out?"

With her hair flickering with fiery sparks, Yang's anger made the businessmen and women back away and she clenched her fists. "Now, my friends and I aren't even full Hunters yet, but we were asked to guard you lot by your request. If you've got a problem about that, blame yourselves. But since you are all alive, in one piece, and the train still moving, I don't think you've got a leg to stand on. **Especially** since people nearly died in your defense."

She glared at one woman and the older Winchester in particular. The woman had made a sarcastic comment about Yang's breasts stealing all the nutrients that were supposed to go to her brain. And Winchester had made a comment about the team being able to defend the train better if they didn't also have to lead their animal around on a leash. "Now, I'm going to walk away without punching any of you in the mouth, which is to me the height of self-control! But if you all bother the rest of my team I might rethink that! Then we'll see if you all can walk to the city after I throw you off the freaking train!"

Without another word Yang marched off, leaving the carts assigned to the businessmen, then leaped up onto the roof between carts, heading forward and letting the feel of the wind in her hair sooth her. Ahead of her, she saw Ranma standing up from some kind of large tarpaulin he had pulled around himself and she felt her last vestige of ill humor leaving her. "Hmm… seems like someone was out in the rain all night. Poor baby, looks like he needs to be heated up."

"That was a reach," said the mildly disapproving voice of Blake, causing Yang to turn around. She saw Blake sitting on the ripped out mount of one of the anti-air guns, a large poncho over her as she turned from where she had been staring at the wet-looking landscape they were currently passing through, a very rocky sort of grassland. "I hate puns, so I'd take a point off for that, but even if I didn't that pun was too forced to be funny."

"Ouch. What can I say even a sparkplug like me has some dim moments. What about you kitty-cat? How are you feeling?" Yang asked, her voice going from teasing to solicitous as she hopped from the rail car she had been on to land next to her partner.

Blake hid a smile with ease, making a point to let Yang see her roll her eyes. She had long gotten used to Yang's whip-quick personality changes, and the fact that underneath her hard charging, pun and party animal Yang was surprisingly caring to those around her. Ruby was just the one usually subjected to it, but she had spread that attitude to her other friends too. _Well, all except Nora, but that might be just because she hasn't had the chance to show it yet with her._ "I'm fine, what little damage I took my Aura healed while we were sleeping. How are the cattle?"

"Ooh, kitty has her claws out. Well, they were bleating and mooing angrily, wanting to charge at the sides of their paddocks, but Cowgirl Yang was able to rein 'em in," Yang said with a smirk.

Cocking her head to one side, Blake blinked once before nodding. "You'd actually look good in a cowboy outfit. But given your hair fetish if anyone tried to put a hat on you…"

"I'd send 'em to the intensive care ward." Yang finished with a laugh. She then became serious, before explaining to Blake how the severely injured gunners had been airlifted, and the gist of her discussion with the businessmen and the rest of the crew. "I was going to check in with Ranma, do you want to come with or get something to eat?"

"Eat," Blake said promptly, then actually smacked her shoulder against Yang's. "I don't want to be a third wheel, and I can keep Ruby and Weiss away from you two for a bit."

"Ooh, partner you just earned some serious points with me," Yanga caroled, pulling the shorter girl into a hug then hopping to her feet. "Save a bagel or something for me, if I work up an appetite I'll make myself something else~~."

"And suddenly I'm regretting this decision," Blake deadpanned, before turning and hopping lithely down between two of the railcars, quickly entering one of them in search of food.

With the coast clear and her newest bestest wing-woman of all time guarding her six, Yang zeroed in on her target and went for it. Leaping over the carts, she landed soon on the engine car, smirking as she moved up behind Ranma who seemed to be staring ahead of them at the moment.

Ranma sighed, stretching as he stood up from where he had been crouching for the better part of an hour, staring ahead of the train. He'd not gotten any sleep this past night, being the only Hunter up and able to fight, he remained on watch throughout the night, making certain the Grimm didn't try for a repeat. _Thank Amaterasu that whatever Grimm Emperor was behind that attack doesn't know enough tactics to stagger his attacks. If he did, they'd always come in at us when we were tired._

He was feeling a little strung out, so when Yang reached him and tried to wrap in a hug from behind he turned, one fist flashing up in a punch that stopped a bare inch away from Yang's face. "Oh, uh, sorry Yang, I'm a bit jumpy right now."

"I can see that," Yang said with a smirk, then she grabbed Ranma's still outstretched hand and turned, flipping himself over her shoulder to slam back first onto the top of the engine. She then sat on his legs, leaning down so that her hair cascaded town covering both their faces, ignoring the shouts of alarm from the conductors watching the engine below them. Her hands found his, and pushed them down with a grip on his wrists. "You seem stressed babe. Let Mama Yang help you with that…"

Maybe it was the fact he'd stayed up all night on watch. Maybe it was the weeks of flirtation, or the way she'd stepped up her game since this trip started. Maybe it was Ranma's hormones overcoming him. Maybe his subconscious self had agreed with Yang's suggestion of just having fun and seeing where it went.

Regardless of whatever it was, Ranma leaned up, meeting Yang halfway.

Yang's violet eyes widened in shock before closing as Ranma kissed her, initiating the contact for the first time. Their lips moved against one another, and Yang released her grip on Ranma's wrists, running them down Ranma's arms and then to his chest, kneading the firm, taut muscles there. Ranma in turn reached up, first to her waist, then to her hair. Yang started to growl against Ranma's lips but it turned into a whimpering moan as Ranma tugged on her hair while kissing her harder, starting to dominate the kiss.

 _Fuuuuck, how did he know that I'd react like that? Hell, **I'd** have never thought pulling at my hair would be a turn on for me. If anything I thought it'd be something that I'd have to hurt him for, _ Yang thought, even as she started to really feel it. Pulling her hair like that, along with the way Ranma was finally responding to her overtures was really getting her engine revving. In reply her hips started a slow, gentle rocking motion against Ranma's waist, causing him to shudder in turn, his ministrations pausing in reply.

This might have let Yang deepen the kiss by slipping her tongue into his mouth but just then a head poked itself up over the cupola. "Hey Ranma you wanted to be told wow!"

The conductor, one of the younger ones, paused as he took in the sight before him. On the roof of his engine was a blonde-maned lioness. She seemed to be crouching over Ranma, the two of them kissing each other ardently, their faces almost obscured by the blonde locks of the lioness. He had a brief second to wonder how much a picture of something like this would be worth to the tabloids before the lioness turned her attention towards him. "EEEP!"

Yang snarled angrily, the expression turning her half-lidded, lust-filled expression turning to something like a raging shark. "What is it with people and interrupting us!?" She roared, leaping off Ranma towards the hapless conductor.

Thinking quickly and not really wanting Yang to have the blood of an innocent on her hands no matter how bad his timing was, Ranma grabbed at Yang's leg as she leaped over him, halting her for just a second before twisting around and hopping to his feet, whereupon he actually got her into a submission hold. "Whoa there Yang no killing the civvies. Besides, I asked them to warn me when we started getting close to the next ambush point."

At those words Yang calmed down, glaring at the conductor, before slowly nodding her head. "You expecting a Grimm attack or White Fang?" _You're off the hook this time boyo, but I'll get you before this is all over!_

"Don't know don't care, one or the other could make use of the next one, which is a bridge crossing where we'll have to slow down and take it slowly." Ranma replied, letting her go and hopping over the conductors head, landing neatly behind the man in the walkway between the two railcars. "Get the others up here Yang, let's have a little powwow."

"Right Ranma," Yang replied racing after him and then down the length of the train, but not before giving the man who'd interrupted them a glare while making a throat slashing motion with one hand. Despite that however, she gathered the other three and came back with them.

She exchanged a glance with Blake as the two of them led the way, Ruby and Weiss talking about how to weaponize their skirts for some reason behind them. "We were just getting to the good part when we were interrupted again. Can't even get mad about it too since Ranma told them to warn him we were coming up on this river crossing." Yang grumbled, her voice a whisper. She was in no mood to deal with Weiss going on a crusade against all things improper, or as Yang thought about them, fun.

"Sorry about that. But hey, you made progress at least," Blake commiserated.

"That's true." Yang replied, brightening up. Then she nudged her partner waggling her eyebrows. "What about your love life? Is there anyone who's the cat's meow in your eyes?"

"Okay, that one was almost decent, or as decent as a pun can ever be," Blake replied, then shook her head. "As for my love-life, we'll have to see. There are too many people who see me as just a Faunus, or just a cat girl."

That took a moment for Yang to parse out, but she nodded. "Too many people see you as a Faunus and so not date material, but on the other hand there are others after your only because you're a cat girl and ooze sensuality every time you move."

Blake blushed hotly, thankful they were still talking quietly enough for the noise of the train to cover their conversation. "Ahem, I wouldn't have put it quite like that, but I suppose so."

"Heh, don't deny it babe, if I could move my hips like you do without throwing out something I could have half the men in the world eating out the palm of my hand." Yang said. She had timed that riposte just right so they entered the engine room to join Ranma and the two oldest conductors there. They were standing around a map which was tacked to one wall as the young Hunters-to-be entered.

"Alright girls, hope you all had a nice rest after the fight yesterday, because we might be facing round two soon." Ranma said without any preamble. While Yang had been gone, he had pulled out his flame lance and his shield from hidden weapon's space. The lance was on his back at the moment, the shield on his arm. "This is the place when I went over the route that I would ambush us at if I was the White Fang and wanted to play pin the bigot or the Grimm just being their usual nasty selves."

"Professor, I understand the point about thinking about ambush places in terms of the White Fang, but why do you think the Grimm are smart enough to plan that far ahead?" Weiss asked, her voice respectful. She had come to actually admire Ranma's combat ability and experience, though she still found his lack of proper decorum deplorable. "While S-class Grimm are intelligent enough they have territory and won't go beyond that, and certainly aren't smart enough to target a specific train unless drawn down on it through feeling the negative emotions of those aboard."

"Yeah, I'm not certain about that anymore. I'm beginning to think that there could be some kind of overarching intelligence that can somehow… ride them or something," Ranma said. While many might have attempted to keep that kind of danger a secret, Ranma couldn't care less. "Think about how that attack happened Weiss. If you can think of a way to explain how a single S-class Grimm, and one which wasn't all that tough, could organize that attack, taking into account the rain, the number of angles of attack, and the way the main attack waited until we were totally engaged with the land-based Grimm, tell me and I'll be damned relieved."

For a moment the four teenage girls were silent, and then Weiss whispered. "That is a horrifying though Professor."

"Yep. Still, regardless of that, or if it'll be White Fang that spring the next ambush, either here or right before the tunnel before we enter Eastport, we'll have to deal with them the same way. If they attack us at the bridge, the bridge itself is the weak point."

"The Grimm lack the ability to destroy a bridge, and the White Fang would not be able to transport explosives so easily from Eastport," Blake said, her tone clinical, almost detached as she and the others attempted to set aside the revelation Ranma had just dropped on them. Ruby looked to be thinking about it still, her silver eyes showing a seriousness that Blake found disconcerting, though not as much as the ruby tint growing in Yang's violet irises. "Therefore the bridge itself is safe. But the train might well be attacked from people hiding underneath the bridge."

"Your tone tells me you don't think that's likely." Ranma said.

"The White Fang won't attack you like that. For one thing, the majority of White Fang are not very well trained. Yes they have their Aura's activated, but there is a vast difference between that and being up to even B-grade Hunter material. This is too far away from any real settlement to be safe. If they go for an actual attack they will wait."

"And if they go for what, slipping a few specialists aboard?" Ranma asked, cocking his head to one side.

"That they could use the bridge for yes." Blake said with a wince.

"What about the tunnel?" Ruby asked, dragging her back from thinking about what Ranma had said earlier. "The danger there will be from above," Ranma and Blake said as one, causing the others to chuckle. Blake nodded at the professor and he went on. "Anyone with their aura activated could jump down from on high and try to land on the train. With a train as long and slow as ours it would be easy."

"Worse, we've lost all the anti-air guns which we could have used as protection. Even the mortar Cannon would not be useful there. The mortar rounds could possibly cause an avalanche that could block the tunnel," Weiss added, her tone calculating. "In fact, with those guns out of service, the tunnel entrance becomes the more dangerous for us."

"Agreed, but hopefully there's no way they know that. If I were the White Fang, I would think that the bridge was the safer option." Ranma replied.

"Lack of information cuts both ways," Weiss said with a smile.

Blake thought for a moment then nodded. "They might have a second team set up on the other side of the tunnel, the exit from our perspective into the caldera, but I don't know enough about the defenses of Eastport or how strong the White Fang are represented there to guess."

"So we're left with a choice, hunker down and wait, or spring the trap using your Bumblebee," Ranma said, pointing at Yang.

Yang's eyes became pure violet again as she looked positively giddy. "Oh hell yes, that gets my vote!"

"Excuse me sir, what's the land like on either side of the bridge itself?" Ruby asked, turning to look at the two conductors.

"Pretty flat on both ends missy, hard packed rock and dirt. Open country too, else we would never have been able to build the bridge in the first place. That was a task and a half, or so my old man used to tell me," one of them replied, with the other nodding along.

"And how far can a mortar fire?"

"Beyond the sight of the front of the train but not by much though we don't have many rounds left," Ranma said. "I looked that up last night while you lot were getting your beauty sleep."

"Heh, you know you love it," Yang said in reply. "And I still say springing the trap on Bumblebee is the way to go."

"As much as it pains me to admit that Yang had the right idea to bring along that bike that she seems to have some pseudo-sexual relationship with, she might be right. Spring the trap first, then get them to concentrate on one or two of us, then blow our way through." Blake said, smirking very slightly at the blush on Weiss's face and the suddenly pale face of Ruby. Yang however simply grinned back at her.

"Anyone else have any ideas?" When no one replied, Ranma nodded. "Cool. In that case Yang, let's go."

"Woohoo!" Yang hooted throwing her arms in the air, sending her long mane of hair to bouncing along with her chest. "You'll love riding with me Ranma, trust me. You might've been on Bumblebee before, but there's a big difference between that and when I'm the one doing the driving!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Adam Taurus hung lightly in a specially prepared web of rope harnesses underneath the final bridge along the rail line from the city of Vale to Eastport, marveling slightly at the construction. Eastport was still several hours' flight away, and Vale had to protect the workers as they built the bridge from both sides against Grimm attacks. A job like that would have cost lives this far away from any safe settlement. He wondered idly how many Faunus had died during that, no doubt slaving away for the fucking humans without any real compensation.

Luckily, for reasons he would rather not think about, the Grimm had stayed away from Adam and his men once they landed here. He had gathered over a hundred of his commandos hanging around him including his Lieutenant, Ripper. The bastards on that train, Winchester, Bronzewing, and all the rest of the humans who had literally called his people out were going to pay for their hubris with their lives. Adam would parade their corpses to the masses to show there was no one that was safe from the White Fang. If not for that desire, he might have just elected to destroying the bridge when the train passed over it.

 _And if the information that Bitch Cinder passed on was accurate, a certain traitorous pussy is going to get pounded too, that needs a personal touch as well._ Adam couldn't help the smile that appearing on his face at that thought. _Just you wait Blake, your treason to the cause will be paid in full today._

He looked up as a sound in the distance grabbed his attention. "What is that?"

"It's the train boss," said a nearby commando. "It's a little early but…"

"Use your senses you idiot. That doesn't sound like any train I've ever heard. That sounds like a motorcycle…" Adam said, scowling as he stared up at the bridge. "Some kind of scout maybe? Regardless, no one move, let it pass and stay in hiding."

They all stayed quiet as the bike noises neared, and Adam cursed internally, wishing there had been someplace to hide a scout above them that wouldn't have been spotted almost immediately. While all Faunus had enhanced senses, right now relying merely on their hearing just wasn't enough.

He could hear the bike moving toward the bridge, then to either side of it, racing along the river's edge in both directions. The bike then came back and crossed over the bridge without stopping, racing on. At the same time, the noise of the train began to override the nearer noise of the bike.

Just as Adam was about to smile at the stupid human's not finding them, a silhouette appeared on the water to one side of the bridge as someone leaped over the side of the bridge. "Surprise assholes, you're not the only one who likes to play with wires!"

 **OOOOOOO**

Even as he tried to push aside the memory of having his arms around the very curvy Yang, Ranma smirked evilly as he flicked his wrist, flinging himself into the bunch of White Fang, smashing them out of their rope carriers without a hint of mercy. These were all terrorists who felt that violence and fear was the best way to get revenge on the humans. Whatever they said in their slogans the White Fang was no longer about trying to gain equality, it was about making the Humans pay for lording it over the Faunus, maybe even beating the humans down in turn.

Each terrorist was holding onto or attached to a series of ropes that had been set up underneath the bridge, and Ranma hurled his shield to one side as he brought his flame lance around to set some of the ropes on fire. The shield slammed into two of the Faunus one after another then bounced back towards Ranma. As it did, he glanced around, not looking at the White Fang, but making certain there were no explosives or anything like that set up on the bridge. It looked as if the White Fang wanted to do this up close and personal, which was fine by him.

One of the White Fang however attempted to get in its way. He was taller than the others, with broad shoulders and the heavily muscled upper body of a swordsman. He had red hair and two black horns making Ranma think he was either a bull or some kind of goat Faunus. He wore a more personalized of the white half-mask that was the normal White Fang look, along with a suit that looked more like an evening outfit rather than the gray armor and black under-clothing that most of them wore. This all told Ranma this guy might well be the leader of this attack.

He had been balancing on one of the thicker ropes and now hurled himself forward one hand holding a sword while his other hand was currently empty as he reached for the shield. But Ranma quickly changed his grip within the lance's protective cover, activating its rifle mode and fire on him. He hit six more White Fang around the man while also peppering him with bullets but while they fell back or gasped in pain, their Aura's taking the hits but still sending them reeling a few of them even falling into the water below, the man didn't seem phased. Instead, he took the shots just like Yang or another Aura monster could have and then attempted to slice through Ranma's shield.

Yet his blade couldn't cut through the shield, its toughness once more saving it from any real damage. The shield was smacked away however, heading down towards the river.

"Damn it!" Ranma groused grabbing a hanging rope and flipping himself in that direction, attempting to grab the shield before it could drop too far. But once more the man with the sword got in his way. His formerly free hand flashed to his belt where his sword was sheathed. The blade came around in a swinging blow, the man's second hand grabbing at his sheathe which turned out to be a kind of rifle.

Ranma brought his lance into play blocking the swing and pushing it to one side, using the momentum of that to twist around in midair, dodging the stream of bullets from the rifle by a hairsbreadth before he was too close for the man to fire at. His elbow came up to smash into the chest of the other man, sending him flying in one direction, while Ranma used the momentum of that blow to fling himself to the side, where he slammed into a hanging White Fang grunt. That worthy barely had time to shout before Ranma had kicked him out of his harness and grabbed the rope he had been hanging from.

The other White Fang had recovered from their surprise, and as the latest victim of Ranma's sudden attack fell to the waters below they began to take Ranma under fire. But to Ranma's surprise, the man with the sword kept his head. "Four of you with me, we'll pin that Hunter down here! Ripper, you take the rest of our troops up now! Ambush that train as we're supposed to!"

"Right Adam!" shouted another, hulking man. He was far taller and thicker in the shoulders than the others were, and while he wore the same outfit, his mask had numerous red striations going through it and an even whiter mask-like appearance. "Just don't be angry if I pound your old pussy partner and bag me a Schnee before you!"

"Oh hell no!" Ranma shouted, leaping forward once more only to yelp and fling his lance up as the man Called Adam flung out some kind of energy attack from his sword, which he had sheathed inside his sheathe rifle for a moment before lashing out in a insanely quick Iai Strike.

It wasn't very large, but Ranma was in mid-jump as it was hurled at him. He flung out his lance to block it, never wanting to take any blows he didn't have to but even though he moved with the hit and attempted to negate much of its energy, the blow still sent him off course, causing him to grab at one of the hanging ropes. He then had to flip himself to another one nearby with only a single twitch of his wrist to propel him when Adam launched another attack at the rope Ranma had been hanging from.

That twitch was enough to get him out of the way, and to another nearby rope over two yards away and Adam cursed. _What the hell, how strong is this Hunter?_

Still, it was evident that this Hunter, who could only be the professor Ranma Saotome, was at home in the air as a bird. He weighed the odds, then ordered his troops to follow Ripper and the others leaping up onto the side of the bridge. "Board the train; force him to come after us inside."

"Get back here goat-boy!" Ranma roared, flinging himself after them.

By this point the train had nearly reached the bridge, slowing as it did. The mortar cannon fired its two remaining rounds to either side of the bridge, hurling several dozen of the White Fang into the water. But the others, using their grapnel guns, were able to ascend to the bridge above and attack the front of the train.

There they instantly came under fire from the top of the engine while it began to cross the bridge. Ruby led Weiss, Blake and the remaining gunners armed with simple rifles at firing at the White Fang. With their timing thrown off, the entire attack faltered now with numerous White Fang gunned down or falling back into the river while others scattered around the bridge, diving under what scant cover there was and returning fire, unable to close with the train while it continued on its way.

Quickly more White Fang came out from underneath the bridge, using their grapnel ropes to ascend swiftly onto the sides of the train. Seeing this Ruby ordered, "Spread out! I'll cover the left side, Weiss the engine; make sure they can't get into the engine room. Blake, take the right while you gunners retreat back toward the top of the car with the VIPS!"

With that Ruby flashed away. She used her semblance and Crescent Rose to cut at dozens of grapnel ropes, continuing to flash back and forth along the train on that side, keeping the White Fang from boarding while the train continued on its way. By now it was almost entirely onto the bridge.

Her lips twitching in something between a frown at being ordered around and a proud smile at how well her partner was able to take charge, Weiss obeyed. A series of glyphs appeared all around, fire and lightning flashing through some of the White Fang trying to board the train. "Right Ruby! Just call if you need help everyone, but remember my glyphs range is limited."

Simply nodding once, Blake continued to hiss in displeasure as she had since they joined the fight while continuing to fire Gambol Shroud, aiming at the legs and arms of her former comrades. _Damn it, how did we turn into this? How did it come to this, that the White Fang has become nothing more than the mindless, ravening beasts we were always portrayed as?_

Then she paused, staring in shock, her eyes widening in both anger and fear as she saw Adam leap up from below the bridge to land on the side of the river twisting around to face back the way he had come. "Adam!" She shouted. She was about to launch herself forward but then her danger sense tingled. With a sudden oath she flung herself backwards, her Semblance activating as she switched out with her own shadow which became a semi-solid clone for a moment taking the hit that had been meant for her.

Behind her former position stood another White Fang member that Blake was familiar with, Adam's favorite hatchet man, Ripper. He served Adam as his chief enforcer, all around leg-breaker and Blake had long wondered if he was a torturer too. He wielded a massive chainsaw like it was a sword, and was even stronger than he looked.

"Heheheh, long time no see Belladonna. You've been a bad, bad pussy cat, betraying us like this, bending over for the humans, even working directly with a Schnee! You're a blight on Faunus-kind Belladonna, and I'm going to enjoy ripping you apart!"

"Come and try it you bastard! You and Adam both, you're a symbol for everything wrong in the White Fang! I…" Blake stopped straightening up from her crouch, her pervious snarl disappearing into a smile. But her eyes were no longer on Ripper, but what was behind him.

Yang had of course turned around Bumblebee the moment she could, but there had been two White Fang teams of five on the other side of the bridge armed with heavy rifles, and she had to deal with them first before coming back. Now she barreled down the bridge towards the oncoming train, which caused the conductors to wonder if the crazy Huntress was about to crash into them. But instead Yang twisted Bumblebee up and onto one of the support struts of the bridge, which stuck up from its side, zooming along the metal strut as the engine passed before using her weight to flip through the air to land tires first on the railcar behind the engine.

Ripper turned to the sound of squealing tires only to get a face full of fist, accompanied by the bang of Ember Celica going off. The impetus of Yang's wild maneuver coupled with the shotgun shell tossed Ripper over Blake's head like a ragdoll.

Twisting Bumblebee around as hard as she could while leaning back, Yang killed all her momentum and then let her baby rest on its side as she stepped clear, her hair on fire and her eyes a fiery red. "You've got a problem with my purrfect partner, you've got a problem with me!" She winked at Blake, before twitching her head to the side where more White Fang members were trying to climb the side of the train. "You want to take care of them, or go see that Adam fella? I'll take out the Vacuo Chainsaw Massacre otaku."

"I'll give you that one free. Have fun Yang and thanks for the assist," Blake said, turning and converting Gambol shroud into a sword, cutting at one of the White Fang commandoes who had tried to climb aboard. Then she gestured over the side of the train her tone turning deadpan. "I think though Adam's already got a partner for this dance."

 _And given how the professor reacts to being around me, plus the fact I'm needed here, I suppose I can forgo confronting him._ Blake ignored the fact she wasn't certain how that confrontation would go, both what she would do, and if she could even beat Adam in a one on one confrontation.

Instead of joining the attack on the train, Adam had rightly assumed that taking Ranma out would make the whole operation far easier. The problem was that as logical as that thought was, his control of his temper had just taken a severe hit. "What did you call me?!"

"I called you a freaking goat-boy, goat-boy!" Ranma said, flinging himself upwards to latch onto the side of the bridge with one hand, then flipping his body up to crouch on the security railing before launching towards where Adam had gained the side of the embankment.

"I. Am. A. Bull!" Adam roared charging forward like his namesake, leaping into the air before realizing that was precisely the kind of mistake that he had hoped to avoid when he repositioned himself on the embankment from under the bridge.

Adam was faster and far more skilled than most human opponents Ranma had fought in this world, definitely more dangerous than a single S-class Grimm. But he wasn't quite as fast as Neo, and nowhere near as precise as he had to be. His first swing passed under Ranma's body as he tapped down on it lightly to move higher into the air, blocking Adam's second swing with his lance as he kicked out, catching Adam in the jaw.

But Adam, while flung backwards by the blow, didn't seem to feel it, and he cut twice more at Ranma before flinging one arm backwards. From underneath his arm a thin wire flashed out from a hidden launcher. The wire wrapped around one of the support struts near to the embankment, pulling him backwards to land on the ground. Ranma dodged around his blows and followed, using his aerial style mastery to use the momentum of the last two blows to fling himself in the same direction.

They both landed, and Ranma immediately began to push Adam backwards as the train's caboose passed them, not letting Adam have a moment's time to think about trying to board the train. But Adam to his surprise kept tanking some body blows that Ranma thought he would be able to dodge. _Huh, okay, so he's like Port, or maybe… could he be like Yang?_

Feeling there was only one way to find out, Ranma began to taunt Adam, building on his earlier success on that score. "So, you're a bull, but you don't like getting called a goat? Why, I mean, ya both have those dinky horns I'd figure… oh wait," Ranma smirked, dodging a cut from Adam that sliced into the ground, twisting into a kick that caught Adam in the head before flipping over another blow."Is it the fact they're not the only dinky thing on ya? I mean, I bet when most think about Bull Faunus, they think of a certain body part. Were ya bullied as a kid by the other bulls for not…measuring up?"

Adam didn't reply, but his attacks came in even more fast and furious. His rifle blasting away on full auto for a time while the ground around them was sliced here and there, the rocks too being gouged or just cut in two from the slashes from his sword. This told Ranma part of what he wanted to know though. Even as one cut got through to open up a small cut on his cheek, Ranma twisted, slamming the point of his lance into Adam's chest, kicking out at the same time to shatter the rifle.

The blow sent him skidding backwards, and Ranma smirked then ducked under the next attack which he now knew was coming. He watched as the colors seemed to drain out of the world around Adam, leaving him standing there surrounded by black and white, tiny rose petals appearing and decomposing around him, before he lashed out. From the edge of his sword flew a wind shear attack of some kind, which sliced into the ground behind Ranma in a wide arc. It was at such an angle that it cut away a large portion of the embankment, ground, stone and all to slide into the river.

Putting his lance back into his weapons space Ranma smirked at Adam. "I know your Semblance now. You absorb your enemy's attacks and return them with cutting force. But I wonder do my attacks also renew your Aura reserves?"

With that Ranma launched himself forward, grinning evilly. Adam for his part grimaced, knowing that a tough fight just got harder. _Damn it, I let his childish taunts get to me, and now this bastard knows my best trick._ Worse for Adam, his Semblance didn't work as Ranma had wondered: while it negated any attacks that hit him, those attacks didn't refill Adam's Aura reserves. Enemy attacks refilled it very slightly and he had large reserves to begin with, but once his Aura was depleted, his Semblance became unusable.

And to make matters worse for Adam he had a brief chance to look over Ranma's shoulder after ducking under a blow. He saw Ripper get smashed over the side of the bridge and out into the water by the pugilist he knew to be the traitor's partner. Beyond that, Adam saw the back of the train now almost over the river, and the majority of his attack force either dead or being rounded up by some kind of red blur. As Adam watched the blur flashed off the train and grabbed two of his men, and return where…

"NO!" Adam roared, leaping away from Ranma and racing towards the bridge. He tossed a flashbang from his belt towards Ranma, who ducked away, covering his eyes as Adam raced on, roaring. "No White Fang member will suffer the indignity of being shackled by a Schnee, not so long as I'm alive! Belladonna you fucking traitor!"

Since the Train had slowed to a near stop now that the battle was nearly over, Weiss and the others heard the angry Bull Faunus's below despite the distance. Blake winced at that, understanding the symbology of what they were doing was rather bad, and Weiss shrugged apologetically. "Given how my family is viewed among the Faunus community I can understand his anger. I suppose I could leave it to you and the gunners?"

"Please do," Blake muttered, even as she stared at the charging form of Adam. "While I wouldn't take any blandishments from him seriously, that bit would never go over well once the news about this ambush breaks later. Especially if you're doing it in the defense of such bigoted idiots as Winchester and the rest."

"Agreed, I'll go guard the front of the train again, just in case." Weiss said, though she too didn't look away from the view of Adam racing towards them.

Behind Adam, Ranma hadn't been nearly as affected by the flashbang as Adam had hoped. He closed with Adam quickly, gaining the bridge only a few steps behind Adam.

Despite his fury at what was happening to his troops Adam still retained enough situational awareness to hear Ranma coming. He turned, his blade flashing in a cut that should have cut Ranma in two cursing as he only now realized that Blush had been destroyed a moment ago before his Semblance's attack. But Ranma slid underneath it at the last second, blocking an impromptu attack from Adam's second sword by grabbing at the hand wielding it before Adam could complete his swing.

A kick caught Adam in the chest, and a powerful downward blow caught Adam in the back of the head, sending him face first into the bridge. He retaliated by rolling away, his blade flashing twice in quick succession in different directions, one towards Yang and the other towards Ranma. They both ducked away, but the attacks cut through the supports on either side of the bridge, causing the whole edifice to groan.

Now once more in control of himself, Adam closed with Ranma, knowing this mission was lost but wanting to try and get his pound of flesh before trying to escape, which he knew would be impossible if Ranma was left to chase after him. He got a few cuts in now as Ranma was worried about letting him attack Yang again, who had dodged Adam's energy attack by the skin of her teeth, limiting Ranma's ability to dodge around Adam. Cuts appeared here and there, some of them getting through his durability, but nothing serious.

But Adam took several hard blows in return, and didn't notice that Ranma was still dictating the battle, as he pretty much had been since the ambush had been sprung. Adam didn't realize it, but he hadn't ever really regained his equilibrium from that point on. He should have ordered a retreat rather than press forward against a prepared enemy, or concentrated his troops on separating Ranma further from the train so he could arrange another ambush later and not have to deal with the martial artist.

But Adam had been so confident he hadn't even thought that the arrogant humans would prepare for them, and had no fall back plans or even transportation nearby. There was no place a bullhead could be hidden within sight of the bridge, and the numerous small bullheads which had brought his team were hidden so far away, the only sounds of the battle that reached them had been the crump of the mortar cannon. They were now waiting anxiously for orders, trying not to become too worried so as to call Grimm to their position.

Ranma and Adam fought up close and personal for several more minutes before Adam made the mistake Ranma was looking for. He feinted with his blade then drew back his fist out of a defensive position to punch Ranma when he went for the body blow Adam expected him to take after leaping over the feint.

But instead, Ranma leaped to the side of the feint and attacked Adam's outstretched arm, bringing his knee up and his fist down, aiming for Adam's elbow and forearm. Aura could not protect a body from the laws of physics, as Ranma and Glynda had pointed out numerous times in class. Stuck between two equal and opposing forces, Adam's Aura failed to protect him. His elbow was shattered, the blows so strong the bone literally exploded under the duel impact, the bone almost exploding outwards ripping through the skin and further mangling the elbow.

Adam gritted his teeth against the pain and his arm spasmed, dropping his sword to the bridge. He tried to punch out with his other hand, showing just as much skill unarmed as he had armed as he had since losing Blush. But the pain of his ruined arm slowed him, and he found his hand grabbed and twisted. He tried to block the kick that came next with a raised knee but failed, and grunted in pain as his shoulder was wrenched out of its socket, when another blow took him in the chest. This was another type of injury that Aura could not help defend or even heal from.

Letting go of Adam's hand, Ranma stood back, watching as Adam stood upright, glaring at him through the haze of pain. Ranma actually respected that, Adam's refusal to yield, to give in or even say anything. But that didn't stop him from flipping up and over Adam, his foot lashing down with a kick that crashed into the back of Adam's head, sending him out like a light.

Ranma knelt down next to the Bull Faunus, gently tapping a few pressure points here and there on his body, deadening the pain and making certain Adam wouldn't be waking up anytime soon. He then dressed the other mans' ruined elbow as best he could, tearing off lengths of cloth from Adam's outfit to do it before taking a second to shatter his sword with a glowing blue fist.

Her eyes now back to their normal violet, Yang moved over to join Ranma, staring down at the Faunus commander. He had nearly cut her in two with that one attack he sent her way, and Yang could only shake her head at how badly Ranma had in turn hurt him. "Damn Ranma, you fucked this guy up! That elbow's never going to be whole ever again."

"Meh, he's lucky he didn't actually hit you with that attack of his. If he had, I mighta forgotten about the need to take prisoners." As Yang smiled in delight at the concern this showed, Ranma frowned, thinking things through. "Yang, head back to the train and get it up to speed again. Tell Weiss and the others to keep the VIPs away from the prisoners, and vice versa."

As he was speaking Ranma had moved over to the short iron railing that stood only up to his waist or so and provided protection from falling over the side to any workers he supposed. To the squeal of tortured metal he ripped off the top rail then turned back to Adam, already twisting it into a loose sphere.

Watching this Yang smirked, understanding what Ranma was doing. "What about you?"

"Meh, I'll catch up. But this guy, I think we need to…Blake?" Ranma broke off moving slightly away from the Cat Faunus. "What's up?"

"Blake stopped, kneeling down to stare at Adam's face, her own expression rather Inscrutable. Then she reached forward and with surprisingly gentle hands removed Adam's half-mask. "He, Adam, he might have a sort of psychological need for his mask. Without it, even if his wounds would let him I don't think he'll fight you much."

"You know this guy Blakey?" Yang asked, pulling Adam upright to let Ranma wrap the railing around his arms and upper body. Another railing soon went around his ankles, whereupon Ranma began to squeeze them.

"We were partners, sort of, more mentor and apprentice really," Blake murmured, still staring at Adam now that his mask was off. Unconscious he could almost have been handsome, but Blake had learned too much of the monster within to care any longer. She looked up at Ranma who still seemed hesitant to be near her. "What will you do with him? I presume you'll be calling in the authorities."

"I'll call in Ozzy and have him send someone out from Beacon. I'm not going to trust the locals to handle this one. Let the VIPs parade the rest, though even that'll probably leave a bad taste in my mouth. But this one, well, I'd bet he knows a lot about the White Fang right?"

"Yes, he, he's one of the White Fang's best." Blake replied, looking now at the ruin of Adam's arm before narrowing her eyes, staring at Ranma. "When Professor Ozpin questions him I'll want to be there. While the White Fang has been led astray by people like Adam, there are still a lot of good people in it, and I won't see them hurt along with the rest."

Staring at Blake, Ranma nodded. "Alright, you lot were heading back to Beacon anyway once we reached Eastport. We'll keep him with us until then, and you all can escort him back. I'll call it in to Ozzy now and he should have a long range bullhead waiting for us by the time we get there."

Thinking further Ranma went on hesitantly. "Did any of the VIPs come out of the train or were in a position to see the end of the fight?" When neither girl could answer, Ranma called Ruby and Weiss on his radio. The two of them answered in the negative and he nodded. "Alright, in that case let's not tell them about red and angry here. In fact Weiss if you could go and lie to 'em just a bit, make it like you're furious that this ass, who you've recognized, got away clean. Maybe a hidden boat in the river or something like that. Whatever you come up with give us the story later, the important thing is that we keep it a secret that we have this guy. I want us to drain him of anything he knows before his fellow terrorist realize we have him and changes bases and what all."

Actually, Ranma was making that bit up on the fly. He wasn't interested in the White Fang at all. No, it was the fact that despite the fight, despite the amount of anger, distress, pain and fear they had all been feeling, there wasn't a single Grimm in sight. _And there is no way that we killed all the Grimm whose territory was along our route. And a fight like this, that'd be the Grimm equivalent of an all ya can eat buffet. No, something else is going on here, and Adam Taurus and his White Fang either took advantage of it, or knew about it. Which means Adam might be able to tell me something about the Grimm Emperor or whatever._

"Hmmpf, while I would prefer not to debase myself through use of such a plebian trick, I suppose the amount of information we can glean from a successful questioning of Adam Taurus later is a good enough cause." Weiss replied.

"Good." With that, Ranma pulled off his armor and under shirt and kicked off his shoes.

"Yummy! Mm, Yang likey, but why the free strip show?" Yang asked, while Blake looked on, a very faint flush on her features. This wasn't the first semi-naked man she'd ever seen, but watching Ranma's muscles move and bunch like a finely oiled machine under his skin was something else.

"Gotta go and get my shield back." With that Ranma dove down into the water.

 **OOOOOOO**

Ozpin stared for a time down at the closed scroll after hanging up with Ranma. He had anticipated either the Grimm or the White Fang would attack the train, but not both. And reading between the lines of what Ranma said and his tone, Ranma understood the implications of the White Fang being able to stay out there and plan an ambush without Grimm opposition he understood the implications there. _It will be interesting to see how much information Taurus has. Perhaps enough to correctly describe the queen? And without the queen, this match between the circle and our old foe will end with our victory. Or, can I dare that this could be enough to lead me to the games-master?_

"Glynda," he said slowly. "If you could grab Port, I think I would like you both on this little mission."

"Of course," Glynda replied. "We'll head out immediately."

"Do so," Ozpin murmured, before moving over to a chess set as Glynda turned to go. He removed one of the black rooks, his hand hovering over the black queen for a moment. Then he chuckled, a dry, crackling sound in the empty room. "The knight's gambit seems to have worked, or rather the Horse's gambit. Now we just need to capitalize."

 **End Chapter**

I realize this doesn't have some of the stuff I said this chapter would include, but considering that I had no time most of the month to work on it and only really worked on it today and about an hour or two yesterday, I think it's good enough. Plus, this lets me put in more character interaction in the next chapter than there would have been, and to expand a Blake portion and a Yang, Ranma and Pyrrha moment before I think going on to the next portion of the story with a far smoother segue than before. However, because it is only about half the length it should have been I think I'll put my own votes in August's poll.

I could have called the chapter disarmed, but that would have made it too obvious. I will say it once more: If he is serious about it, only Cinder, Glynda, Ironwood, and Ozpin would give Ranma a real fight in close range. And Adam as I mentioned in the chapter was off-balance and flatfooted form the start. The real dangers in this fic come from the Grimm, not the human-type people. As for Yang vs. Ripper, heh, just a very bad matchup for the WF sub officer.

Blake and Yang's interactions are the most fun for me I think, then come Ranma and Pyrrha and then Ranma and Yang, though oddly enough not when they're actually flirting. Weird.


End file.
